Black Friday is Donation Day in our house

[ABK]

Our day-after-Thanksgiving tradition is to collect up all the things in the house that we haven't touched in a year, and donate them to Goodwill. DH and I actually do this all year long, but Black Friday is the one day that the kids have to take a good hard look at their toys and books and decide if these are things that another less fortunate kid can get some use out of.

This is our third year doing it. They resisted the first two years, mostly donating small, junky things (a single Hot Wheel here, a McDonalds toy there). But this year they really went wild! We took in three huge boxes of old toys and books, and now their room is super clean and has loads of space.

It feels great to have stuff leaving the house on Black Friday instead of entering it. Now to get the tween to think something other than, "Great! More space to fill up with new toys and books!" :)

[Need2Save]

Thank you for sharing your family tradition.  I like this idea very much.  We are very far from the fast-food toy days, but back in the day, this would have been a great way to decrease the kid's stuff before the grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. loaded them up with more for the holidays. If you can donate anything of value, it makes the effort worth while and glad you are sharing those values with your little ones. 

Thanks for sharing.

[Cassie]

What a great idea. When I had kids at home I would donate toys to foster homes because foster kids are really hard on toys and the foster homes were so happy to get this stuff. All you have to do is find your local social work agency and they could put you in touch with how to do this.

[justkeepswimmin]

Love it! Great tradition. I'm now inspired to do the same :)