The Purge Before the Binge

So it all started when I was getting ready for a visit from a relative.  I'm wired to start organizing only when I know someone may be looking in these closets with a judgmental eye.  And really, who does that better than a visiting sister right?  So the linen closet and medicine cabinets got the once over.  Purging expired medication and other odds and ends I wasn't using felt liberating.  Our 40 yr old house wasn't build with roomy closets either so extra space is a blessed thing here.

My sister came and went, and I'm not sure we slowed down long enough for her to look inside any of my medicine cabinets, but it felt good knowing they were cleared out.  On November 29th I felt the need to purge again due to a truck picking up donations in my neighborhood the following day.  Alas I read the date wrong and what I thought read Nov 30th was actually Nov 03.  So 8 bags of stuff from my playroom now sit in the corner waiting to be asked to the prom (just kidding- I am aware that there is no prom for discarded playroom toys, I just liked saying that).  That's a lot of toys that I now have to keep secret from my children until the next pick up.  Big Boy is the most sentimental of all of my kids and he has already unloaded one trash bag full of stuffed animals.  Some have not been played with for 4-5 years.  Maybe he will find some room in that new Samsonite luggage of his for the 4 ft stuffed alligator he loves so much.

My purging has not stopped with the toy room.  For the better part of a day I spent my time sweating over the stuff of my laundry room all the while thinking of stuff I could be putting in this place instead.  Food storage instead of leaky air mattresses.  New camping gear instead of outgrown snow boots.  I even got rid of all the unmatched solo mittens.  I tell ya, nothing (almost) feels better than getting rid of unused items just taking up space.  To me it even beats bringing home something new.  So now I have several trash bags taking up space just waiting to be donated.  My husband may have to help me load up the van on his next day off.  I'm used to moving every 3-4 years with the military, which forces one to do this sort of thing.  It looks as if we are here for a while though so I need to force-purge.

So all this getting rid of stuff comes before the Christmas Holiday where we will accumulate more stuff to fill those empty spaces, but I am figuring something out this year, something new.  When I see the things that go unused (some of which are gifts from last year still unopened!)  I tell myself to slow down and be more thoughtful about what I get.  We don't really need stuff do we?  What we really need is more time together.  Time to enjoy one another.  Experiences mean more to me than things.  So this year as I wade through the stuff of Christmas pasts, I am hoping to make my gifts more thoughtful and meaningful and less.  Just less stuff.  Even the stocking stuffers I am purchasing with more sense of purpose.  Maybe nobody will notice my emphasis this year.  Maybe by the 24th it will end up being the same overload of things.  Still I feel like this purging has given me a bit of perspective.  It's like the Grinch learned on Christmas morning... that Christmas doesn't come from a store.

Merry Christmas to you!  Hope you don't get too much this year : )