[MFogleman]

Oh man, I'm glad i'm not the only one. Please let me know if you have a solution. It is really difficult to, in a kind way, tell my generous friends and family, "Please don't buy my kids anything. We have more clothes than we need, more toys than we need. They are just going to play with it today then throw it in front of the already overflowing toy box because we literally have no place to put it"

The closest solution we've gotten is to not do that, but instead use it as an opportunity to talk to the pre-schooler about charity and sharing with the less fortunate, eventually leading him to the "lets give our extra toys we don't play with very much to other kids" thought.

[james_s_tayler]

You just have to be blunt. It feels kind of terrible but it will sit you free.

I stopped participating in Christmas years ago. Was very freeing.

[thedirt0115]

One great option would be to open up a college savings plan (529 Plan) for your children and ask them to contribute some small amount to that. It's less awkward than just saying "please stop buying us junk", but it can have the same effect + money for education!

[Consultant32452]

I have this same family problem. My brother did the 529 thing for his kids. Behind my brother's back the most problematic family member in this area was really nasty about it. They were insulted. They went on this rant about how Christmas is "their thing" and they aren't going to let us ruin it by restricting how much stuff they buy our children. I hope this 529 things works for some families, but in my experience it's a failure.

[jchallis]

I tried this with family. - 2 older members got the point and have been very good about sticking to it.

- N-2 members got huffy that they wanted to see the kids open things. No college contributions.

[ftio]

We're in the exact same boat. Our families will just not stop buying gifts for our three-year-old. We have two 'solutions,' which are sorta kinda working but are not totally satisfying:

- We end up making a lot of donations to local thrift stores, women's shelters, and other charities immediately following holidays and birthdays without telling our kids about it. The toys they don't play with simply disappear.

- If the gift is something we want him to eventually play with but that he doesn't have the attention span to remember in the near term, we just hide it in a closet and give it as a 'gift' for completing his 'good behavior' chart later on. He's always surprised and excited. Nice win-win for us.

[blackoil]

For us all toys from birthday go in a cupboard and we take out only one toy each month and they have to take out one toy for thrift store/NGO/younger relatives.