Would this be a weird tradition to start for Christmas?

[Elphie54]

I didn’t grow up around Christmas traditions since I was raised in a Pagan household. DP and I have decided tp raise our daughter in a Christian tradition house hold and possibly even Catholic (He was raised Catholic and it means more to him to involve her in his faith than it does to me).

Any way, our dd is almost 2. She has a TON of baby toys that she doesn’t play with, but when we try to get rid of a few she gets really upset and all of a sudden wants to play with them again. We have been trying to teach her that there are other children who would love the toys she no longer plays with. When we say that we are going to give it to another child, she gets excited and puts toys in the box and no longer throws a fit over them.

I suggested a “toy sorting” party to be held before Christmas each year, so clean up old toys. I said that we can make it a condition of that stupid elf coming and telling her that the elf takes the old toys to children in need. DP thought that sounded a bit weird. Is it really that weird?

Yes I know she doesn’t fully understand yet, but she does seem to grasp the idea of giving to others.

Personally I wouldn't involve the elf. Or make it a deal about giving to charity etc. I think it's asking too much of her at her age to understand about giving up toys to others at age 1. She can hardly have a concept of that. Also it's blaming it on the elf as such. It's not a good tradition as when she gets to 4 or 5 and has an idea of logic, she'll be asking exactly how the elf moves all the toys by himself, where do they go, when does he take them etc. By 6, she will know you're lying about it so it'll be a short-lived "tradition"!

I would move the toys around a bit so some are upstairs that were downstairs and vice versa, so she gets used to seeing them in different locations. I'd hide away some of the toys that she doesn't need anymore and see if she asks about them after a week or two. Likely aged 2 she will forget about them.

I have 3DCs so I've done the "redistribution" (ahem) of toys things a lot over the years. I do keep some toys of sentimental value or ones which they would play with again, even older (such as Duplo, jigsaws etc - my 8yo still likes a build of the Duplo!) but baby toys which really are baby aged, unless it's a complete special favourite to play with and/or is of sentimental value then I would just quietly remove.

As they get older and DO understand the concept of giving to charity, that's when they can make their own decisions over toys. It's more meaningful to them. Plenty of time to put that decision making process on them then.

Pagans celebrate the Midwinter festival/ Yule (the festival Christians borrowed as claimed as their own). We have many traditions (actual traditions) as the Op would know.

Yes Maiden we do, however as I said in my post, it was a joint decision that she will not be raised with them.

It's what I have always done with my children I tell them we have to sort out the toys they are too old for/ broken missing pieces for the elves to fix and give to other children who don't have mummies/daddies to buy for them. The broken stuff goes in the bin the good stuff I give to the local charity shops.

Elf isn’t a Christian tradition though.
I would be cautious of getting rid of toys based on not being played with for a few months - I find they come and go in cycles.

Nope. Great idea. Before Xmas eve every year we have a toy clear out for the children who aren’t lucky enough to get lots of toys from Father Christmas - they get sent to him, wrapped by the elves and redistributed.
We’re Catholic but that makes no difference, it’s just basic humanity/Christianity to help others and a value we want to instil in our children.
We’ve been doing it since age 1 as well