The Holiday Craptastic Extravaganza!

Let me start by saying, I'm truly not some party-pooping, holiday-hating scrooge but can we, as mamas, come together and say enough is enough! Mini notepads, plastic necklaces, ink stamps, tiny bottles of bubbles, and SO MANY PENCILS. Can we agree that this stuff is nothing more than garbage??

I had my first taste of this school holiday phenomenon when my 5 year old was in junior pre-K. She would come home with a birthday goody bag full of useless items that she swore she had to keep. I would go into stealth-mom mode and slowly throw everything into the trash, one piece at a time. When she would ask about it I would feign ignorance. "Oh, honey, I'm not sure what happened to the Elsa eraser. It's so small, the cats must have knocked it under something." (NOTE: ALWAYS BLAME THE CATS)

Fast forward to pre-K when the loot haul escalated from a single birthday goody bag to a Valentine's extravaganza of crap. 5 year old would go through every bit of junk, ooooh-ing and aaaah-ing, only to leave the bag of China-manufactured, petroleum-based chotchkies sitting on my kitchen island taking up space. And no matter how many times I moved said bag into her room it somehow mysteriously made its way back out to the living room and slowly spread throughout the house like a cold virus at a winter birthday party.

And speaking of birthday parties, enter Kindergarten. Now it's getting serious. Now 5 year old is getting invited to lots of birthday parties because no parent wants to offend anyone so they send out invitations to the entire class. And if there's a party, my 5 year old wants to be there. And each time she arrives home triumphantly carrying a plastic bag emblazoned with Sparkle & Shine or The Incredibles (or if it's that one really fancy party, a handled paper gift bag with a beautiful Alice and Wonderland motif. Cha-ching!) filled with more shit I don't need in my house.

And since we've just arrived in March I can only assume that I have several more bags of this stuff coming my way. This kindergarten class certainly seems to have some overachieving moms who make up goody bags for every little occasion. (St. Patrick's Day, I see you coming.) How long does this last? Does this morph into a new form of junk as they get older? And I still have the 2 year old who has already come home from daycare with a few little knick-knacks in her backpack. You better believe that stuff went straight into the trash before she even knew it existed.

I know, I know. I'm fighting a losing battle. It's all part of the joys of parenthood. I get it. But, come on. Can't we do better than this? Can't we be more creative? (And by "we" I mean the parents who insist on engaging in these holiday shenanigans) If I had a dollar for every piece of cheap, worthless, Oriental Trading Co. catalog party favor that entered this house I'd be typing on a much more expensive laptop.