How To Keep Your Kids’ Gifts From Taking Over Your House

Even though my husband and I chose to only give our children three gifts each, plus stockings, for Christmas this year, we have lots of relatives who love to buy presents for our kids.

The gifts are great and really fun, but we spent a lot of time decluttering our home this year and have completely decluttered our schoolroom since last Christmas. Twice. (Once in March, once in October.)

So, the last thing I wanted to do was toss all of their Christmas gifts upstairs and hope for the best because I’d like to avoid going from this:

Back to this:

So I racked my brain trying to figure out how I could let my kids enjoy their gifts without cluttering up the schoolroom. After a few hours of thinking about this off and on, I had an epiphany! Rainy day baskets!

We set to work right away, picking items to put away in the classroom (which doubles as their toy room) for them to enjoy right away. We also picked out several things to put in baskets to save for a “rainy day.”

Knowing they’ll be able to savor and enjoy their Christmas presents from loved ones all year long is so exciting to them! And knowing the classroom won’t look like the Tasmanian Devil lives here is so exciting to me 😉

NOTE: These baskets are being placed on a high closet shelf for me to pull out when the time comes.

PS If you don’t have any really cute baskets, don’t stress! Use gift bags, tote bags, plastic grocery sacks, a laundry basket, or whatever else you have laying around.

What about you? How do you handle the Christmas gifts in your home?