The Merriam-Webster dictionary people describe “sentimental” this way:
1. a: marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism b: resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought — i.e. a sentimental attachment.
Sentimental attachment is the leading cause of clutteritis — the word I use to describe the habit of gathering things and then hanging on to them for life.
While men are not immune from clutteritis (we all know men who can’t stop collecting tools, for example), experience has shown that women have clutteritis down to an art. The majority of women are afflicted with clutteritis when the first child arrives. That’s when the sentimentality gene really kicks in.
The result? You might find it in your own home: report cards for every child for every year they went to school; the children’s first drawings; crafts the kids made in school or at summer camp. Most mothers have boxes and boxes of this stuff stored somewhere in the house. The most sentimental have some of this stuff on display for all to see, even though little Billy might not be so little anymore.
For example, my mother-in-law places a wooden log with a hole scooped out for a candle and plastic holly glued to the bottom in a place of honour on the living room coffee table each Christmas. The centrepiece was crafted by my husband, Gary, now in his late 50s, when he was in grade school!
I am certain my mother-in-law has seen many other centrepieces over the years that she would prefer to grace her table. But sentimentality prevents her from throwing away the pitiful log and its original (now bent and dusty) red candle. No doubt my mother-in-law finds me an odd duck because I don’t think the log is adorable — but hey, I never had children, so it’s not my fault I’m not sentimental!
My policy on gifts is to enjoy them for as long as they bring pleasure — which for me usually means they are useful, or are beautiful to look at and/or are in style — then discard them. That means throwing out, or giving away, a crocheted orange and brown shag rug from the 1970s, not keeping it in a box in the basement (or, heaven forbid, on the floor at the front door) just because someone I like made it for me more than 30 years ago. I might pull out a fond memory of that old shag rug from my fuzzy brain now and then, but it doesn’t mean I have to look at the rug itself for life.
How do you decide which gifts stay for life and which don’t?