So have you purged any Christmas toys?

[BeachBum]

Ha. As I work on spring cleaning I keep coming across things *I* bought for christmas for the kids that aren't getting any love...but I feel so guilty because they are still newish. They just feel like clutter now. Were they really mistakes? or should I just think--fun for a bit, but not they are gone? or keep them around just in case they garner new interest--I mean they're paid for.

Just curious if any of ya'll are running into the same dilemma.

[smiles33]

Yes, I already purged the horrible Crayola crayon maker from our house. I bought it via an Amazon Lightning Deal for $9.99 and it's a piece o' crap. Never made a full length crayon, just stubby, ugly brown colored tips that really couldn't be used. Plus, it took so long to make (so the girls got bored) and didn't even completely melt all the wax so it left a huge mess for me to clean up. I'm debating between tossing it directly into the trash or Freecycling it because there may be a patient mama who does want to deal with it...But then I wonder if I'm going to earn bad karma for passing it along! So it's still sitting in my garage.

[mypa]

Yes, in fact about half the Christmas toys got no love after the first few days. I learned from last year to save the boxes (and receipts) and I did end up returning them (Target, TRU, Costco, Amazon). It felt so good to get them out of the house and get my money back!

To be honest, most of the items returned did not work as expected (too frustrating for the kids, kept falling apart, too loud, was defective, etc).

I got burned 2 years ago when I got a bunch of toys from the Target/AOL sale but didn't open them until after the return period and a bunch of the toys had defects/didn't worked properly. Even this year several toys from Costco and Amazon had defects.

So now I always save receipts and boxes, test them out right away, and try to buy locally to make returns easier. So many toys do not live up to the hype or once the kids play with them they realize it's not what they expected.

BTW, the kids have not missed the returned toys at all. However, I did replace some of the toys with their new love, Playmobil, and those they have been playing with everyday.