When friends love and appreciate you, they shower you with gifts for every possible event possible: birthdays, Christmases, Hanukkahs, housewarmings, baby arrivals, engagements, weddings, anniversaries — you name it. Sometimes, some friends can be efficient with gift giving (asking explicitly for what you want, wish lists, etc.), some friends can be frugal (waiting until around New Year’s Day to give you your Christmas gift so she can buy it once it’s gone on sale after Christmas). I get it: it’s done out of love. I’m definitely not complaining about it and am grateful when I am gifted items because it means someone’s actually thinking about me. What this inevitably means is… the more friends you have, the chances are high the more stuff you will accumulate. Between Chris and me, we definitely do not have a high quantity of friends, yet somehow, we’ve managed to accumulate so many items that are still brand new, never opened, and never used.
Among the gifts we uncovered during our move: fancy, hand-crafted, made-in-France cheese knives, cutting boards, excess blankets, never-used bowls and plates, a single-scoop ice cream maker, cheese knife-and-board sets, a wine rack, books on random topics. In addition, I’ve also uncovered things we’ve purchased or been gifted that we really just are bored of and have no use for anymore, including popsicle molds, DVD sets, and a picnic umbrella (I am still confused as to why my husband, who is a self-proclaimed picnic hater, not only owns a very large plastic picnic blanket, but also a MASSIVE multi-colored picnic umbrella). We’re creating a pile of items to sell and wondering what we will actually get back for these.
The downside of moving into a larger space is that when you have more space… you will inevitably get more things to fill it up. When you have more closet space, you will find ways (or your family/friends will find ways) to help you fill it up. I hope we do not accumulate too much clutter in this new place and focus on buying/accepting gifts of items we will actually use.