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You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017, I had my second daughter, and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show.

Welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast. We are going to talk today about gifts for kids and, as you know, I'm a big proponent of experience gifts, and so I do have a free experience gift guide that has over 100 ideas for you, and these ideas they vary widely as far as how much they cost, how much of a commitment they are, and I know that I think something that stops people from experience gifts a lot of the time is budget, because most people think of, when they think of experience gifts, they think they have to do like a year-long membership to a children's museum or something like that. That can can be pricey, especially for a family pass or something like that. So, yes, that's an option, but absolutely not the only option. There are so many ways to do really inexpensive or even free experience gifts, and so I cover all of that inside the guide. I also cover how to kind of transition your kids into more experience gifts if they have never received those yet and you're worried about how they're going to react to them, and there's also information in there I believe it's a video that I took that really talks about just how to talk to family members who you would love it if they started to give your kids some experiences instead of so many toys, and so it just kind of goes through how to have that conversation, but also things that you can do to make them want to continue to give your kids experience gifts once they have. Things that you can do to highlight how much fun your kids have been having with those gifts that just encourage them, because most of the time, people want that are like giving your kids lots of toys. They love them and they want to make them happy, and so they get joy from seeing your kids open up these toys that they're really excited about. And I think there's a fear there that if their grandchild or niece or nephew opens up this gift and it's an experience, they're kind of like, oh that's not what I asked for. You know there's that fear and so I go over in the video how to like just kind of work through that, have that conversation and then how to follow up to make sure that they feel appreciated and that they still they're getting that same type of joy. So to get that guide is totally free. There is a link in the show notes but you can also just send me a DM on Instagram at the dot declutteredmom. Just send me the word guide G, u, I, d, e. If you just DM that to me, I will get you the guide really quickly. Send it over so that you can read through that and get some ideas.

So I wanted to talk about gifts, not just experience gifts, because it might I think it surprises people to learn that I don't do all experience gifts in our house. Our kids get toys at Christmas, they get toys on their birthdays. They get, they get physical items all the time. But we also mix in experience gifts with it and I think that might be another area that people go just like a little too hardcore and they only give experience gifts and I don't think that's bad. I'm not judging it, but for me and our family it I just don't think it would go over very well and I don't think it would work very well and I think it would take some of the experience gifts. What is the word I'm looking for? I will think of it as soon as I stop recording, but I just we do toys. Part of that is that my husband, if it was his perfect world, they would get like 200 kids. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but actually, maybe not, I don't know and if it was my perfect world, they would get like five. And we are married, they are both of our kids, it is both of our Christmas experience, and so because of that, we have really learned how to compromise, and giving the girls toys is something that is important to him, and so we do, and I like giving toys to my kids too. Why? Because they love them, because they're kids, and kids love toys. So even though you'll hear me talk all the time about how less toys are best for your kids and they're going to help your kids play more independently and more imaginatively and all of that that doesn't mean that toys are evil and toys are bad and kids shouldn't get toys as gifts ever. It just means that you're being purposeful in the types of toys that you're giving to your kids and you're doing regular decluttering to go through and working with your kids to let go of the toys that they're not really playing with anymore.

Which side note, you guys, I need to do an episode on this, because I had a reel on Instagram go viral recently. That was just. It was like a meme from the office with Droit Shrutt like running away, yelling no, and I put words on it that said something about like your kids when you declutter their toys. That's not exactly what it said, but that's the basic gist of it and it went super viral. I think it's now my second or third most viral video ever. It's like something like 12 million views. It's insane. But the comments, you guys, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of comments of people saying this is why I do it when my kids are at school or this is why I declutter when my kids are at grandma's house, and I am not a proponent of that. I think that when you declutter without your kids, you are yes, you're getting rid of the toys and you're like feeling better in the very short-term interim, but you are actually teaching your kids to hold on tighter to their belongings and that's gonna travel through with them to their adulthood, whether they realize it or not, because they're worried that, like when they're at school, mom's gonna go through and throw away their stuff. So I think I need to do an entire episode on this, because I was like it was kind of like alarming or shocking at how many comments we're saying that. And if you are someone who does that, I'm not telling you that you're a bad mom or you're doing something terrible. I'm just saying that there is a better way, a way that will help your kids learn how to let go themselves, versus maybe having a backfire on you and having them actually hold on to things even closer.

Okay, sorry, tangent, holy moly ADHD. So I was saying that we do, do we do gift toys to our kids for Christmas and for birthdays.

So, fun fact, both of my kids' birthdays are within two weeks of Christmas and my husband's birthday isn't within three weeks of Christmas. So, like after Christmas, when I am just like spent, you know, and I'm like, okay, I'm ready to like not have any plans for a while. Oh no, oh no. We have three birthdays to plan for, and every year in January, we do our five-day decluttering challenge. So it's just, it's it's a busy time. And I actually asked my girls today. I said do you want to do a party this year or do you want to do like a staycation overnight in a hotel and like celebrate with just the four of us and do something fun? Like go do something fun, go out to dinner and then stay the night in a hotel? And they were like, yeah, can we do the hotel? That would be so much fun. And it kind of surprised me. I really wasn't sure how they would take it and I was a hundred percent okay with either thing. Like if they really wanted to do a party, that's fine, but if they really want to do the hotel, that's great too, but I would. I kind of thought they'd be like I mean, that sounds fun, but I really want to do a party. And I was surprised. We don't like travel a ton, but like hotels are not something they've never stayed in or anything like that. But they thought that was the best idea and I am so happy that they picked that and that they seemed so excited about it. Because planning two birthday parties the two weeks after Christmas like every, everyone's busy, everyone's so busy, everyone's traveling, everyone has New Year's plans it's not fun. It's not a fun time to celebrate or to not celebrate, but to plan kids birthday parties.

And so I just side note again maybe we are not going to even talk about the topic tonight because I'm just going to keep going on tangent.

Okay, so we do gift toys. The other thing I really like to do is I like to just kind of mix in several different categories. So I really like to mix in toys. I really like to mix in experience gifts and I really like to mix in things. They things they need already but they will still appreciate as a present. So maybe it's a couple new items of clothing, maybe it is a bike, maybe it is swimsuits, because they're starting swim lessons soon. So like thinking through different things that you know they're going to need soon is always one of my favorite things to do, and my oldest is almost 10 and she still loves getting gifts like that. Maybe that'll change when she becomes a teenager, but I will take full advantage of it for as long as I can, because it's a great way to be able to give a gift to see them happy, but to also just be giving them something that they, that we know we have to get anyway, so we're not adding extra into the house.

And then I also really love consumables. So that can be food, but that can also just be things like chapstick and gum and just different things that like they are going to use up craft supplies, things that they are going to use, and then they're done and we toss it. You know what I mean. So I really like doing things like that. When I say food, I just mean like candies that they really love or things like that. And I Um one of my favorite. I'm just gonna tell you one of the ideas on the experience guide. One of my favorite ideas for like a low-cost gift is, if the child loves baking, then buying the supplies, so buying the ingredients for something that you are going to bake with them and Wrapping those up and gifting that to the child with a coupon. You can like hand write it. You can go on Canva. It's a. I have a paid version, but I know there's a free version Also. It's like a graphics app or Website, I don't know what it's called. Anyway, it's really easy to make just a really cute coupon in there. I'm sure you could find one on Etsy also for like a dollar or less that you could customize. But just print out a coupon and include that with the ingredients for Baking day with mom and have like the recipe in there and then, like, have a date on there. If, like, these are the types of things where we can give our kids something that they are going to really love, they're going to look forward to it, they're gonna see the chocolate chips in the bag and they're gonna be so excited because they get to make something with chocolate Chips and they get to spend time with mom and they get to bake something like, these are just the things that we can think through, where we don't always have to give them something that they'll play with for five minutes and then it ends up in a pile of clutter that you're trying to figure out how to donate by the end of January. So, again, toys aren't bad, but let's mix in some other ideas this Christmas that we can, that we can just foster the environment that we are working so hard by decluttering and by Systemizing To keep and to and to just make into an environment that works really well for the whole family.

Okay, so again, if you have not already snagged the experience gift guide, go do that now in the show notes or DM me the word guide, and that's going to give you so many ideas, so so many ideas that you can start to incorporate. And even if you just do one experience gift this Christmas and the rest is toys and everything else, and then next year you can do a couple more, and again, the goal isn't to get to fully experience gifts, but to just have a really well-balanced Number of gifts so that it's just. It's such a great thing.

Also, you guys, I think we just we forget how much experiences mean to our kids and how they just love being with their family, being with their parents, like most of the time, what they're doing, it doesn't matter Right. Like I talk to people in my members group all the time about how they'll go on like a big vacation and they'll ask their kids at the end of it like what was your favorite part? And they'll be like eating pizza with you the first night, just something so simple. Like we took our kids to Disney, to Disneyland, which that was the first time I had ever been to Disneyland, because growing up in Michigan you always went to Disney World and I say that like we went every year. We went one time, but most people, at least when I was growing up, most people in Michigan would drive to Florida to go to Disney World. So I've lived in Colorado now for 15 years 16 years, I think, 15 years and most people here growing up, at least according to my husband would go to Disneyland in California. So we went to Disneyland last summer and we did all of these fun things and it was some trip that we planned for a long time. It was the first trip we took since COVID began and we asked the girls on the way home what their favorite part was and they said swimming in the pool with you guys at the hotel, like just like we swim together all the time in Colorado, like we go to the pool all summer long. 

But it was just it's just kind of funny Kids and they, they just love spending time with us. They value that so much and so when we can gift them these experiences, that's what they want. It doesn't have to be this like extravagant thing that you spend tons of money on. They just want to be with us and they want our full attention and they thrive. They thrive with that and they just get so excited. So just remember that as you're looking through the experience gift guide, because that's what is most important. So I hope this was helpful for you guys. Let me know if you have any questions on Instagram, in my DMs, and we will see you next week.

Thanks for hanging out and listening to the decluttered mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at the decluttered mom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I'll come back next week and hang out with us again.