Simplify Your Life’s Weblog

With this day and age of excess, I love the following list of ideas to teach our children how to simplify … just follow the link here.

http://www.onlineorganizing.com/NewslettersArticle.asp?newsletter=go&article=794

I have long encouraged people to give my children “experience” gifts rather than more things and it surprises me how difficult that seems to be for people.  It is almost as if they don’t think it is a true gift unless there is something they can unwrap, play with for approximately 3 days and then discard in the tub with all the other things.  Of course, there is the chance that a few months from now they will rediscover it and play with it for a few more days  I love the idea of having the memories of fun times with people we love rather than another piece of plastic to eventually end up in a landfill. 

My hope is that, with a little direction, the experience gifts are ones my children will request on their own as time goes on.  I can picture them sitting and thinking about how much fun it will be to go to the “paint your own pottery” place with Aunt Angie and then reliving it each time they look at that clay spider they picked out.  Sure it leaves them with bringing another “thing” home however this one has a personal connection tied to it.  Personal connections make our lives much richer, fill us with gratitude and inspire us to keep others close to our hearts.