‘Hurry up, HURRY UP! COME ON!’ That was the small child this morning, anxious to get off to school. The older one was fiddling with hair clips and wrestling on her shoes. This enthusiasm for leaving the house is not the norm, but today is the Easter jumble sale, and the excitement in the air is palpable. Last year tempers flared when I secretly packed off a small basket that I’d been tripping over for months, and a small boy bought it. ‘Declan bought my basket!’ wailed the older child, puce with indignation. ‘What will I do my Easter hunt with?’ This year we selected some items together, to prevent similar fall-outs. This explains why my husband has a lamb in his pocket. It was initially in the bag but they changed their mind at the last minute and home it was sent on Monday to be forever treasured. ‘You can buy ONE thing, and that’s IT, I warn them, as I drop them off.
Their classroom assistant overhears and comes running. She knows all about my aversion to clutter. (She must have read the Marie Kondo one where I gave off). ‘I’ve kept them a nice big bag for all their goodies!’ she says, with a mischievous gleam in her eye. ‘One year,’ she goes on, ‘the sale was over and there was still MOUNDS of stuff left. Mrs Clarke just opened the doors and yelled, “It’s all free!” Some kids went home with bin-bags.’
Dear God. I think I might actually die if anymore trash arrives in our house. At half-term we spent A DAY, no word of a lie, A DAY in the children’s bedroom. Lifting, hoovering, folding, sorting, purging. Well, not so much of a purge as a ‘reshuffle.’ ‘We’re filling this bag,’ I declared. ‘Pop in some toys and say “Bye! See you at Easter!”’ I duly produced a cerise House of Fraser bag and in went about twenty dolls and cuddly toys, who are currently residing in a downstairs cupboard. I did this a year ago but the forgot all about them. The little buggers then tearfully told their grandparents that I had given away one particular bunny of which they were very fond. Granny went straight out and bought them a new bun each, so we gained two instead of reducing the pile.
So here are two tips to help you whittle down your mountains of random plastic crap.
- Get on that WhatsApp group and suggest that instead of a present at the birthday parties, it should be the class policy to give a fiver in a handmade card. That way, you can oversee what your children buy, in a toyshop of your choice, and because they’re probably too small to know the price of things, squirrel away the rest in their bank accounts, so they can blow it on something equally unsuitable when they’re eighteen.
- Sticking to the party theme, hunt out all your plastic tat such as toys from McDonalds; remnants from other parties which they won at ‘pass the parcel’; and those bits of plastic rubbish which come stuck to children’s magazines. Instead of handing out party bags full of Haribo shit to send them hyper and rot their teeth, let the small revellers choose their own piece of nonsense from your giant sack of cast-offs. I did this at our P1 party recently and the parents thought it was genius. I could see their eyes light up as they finally saw a home for all their accumulated dross.
Happy Easter to you all, and I hope you have more luck than me keeping your houses in order over the festivities.
*Names have been changed to protect identities 😉
