please empty your brain below

Oh dear - you sound incredibly like me. I haven't "done" Christmas for years so the whole present buying / receiving thing is irrelevant to me. However the mass accumulation of books, CDs, video tapes and not chucking clothes out is more than familiar although my purchases of these have declined hugely in recent years. I do throw out old magazines once the piles of them get out of control - I'm sure the bin men love those weeks when the wheelie bin weighs half a ton. The bigger problem for me is not having a car which makes disposal of old clothes difficult. The few local collection bins are always full and the council won't do specific collections for old clothes nor accept them via recycling.
DG, you are not alone. Everyone you said, whether about the present exchanging ritual or your supposed inability to ditch stuff strikes a chord with me. I would make a few quick points: 1) if you have the space fine eg it makes using the washing machine easier if you have a full load of identical stuff, 2) I suspect that you hate having to waste money on replacing stuff you threw out last month and now might need, 3) supermarket bags, the idea of paying for them really annoys, hence I have a lifetime's stock. Rest assured that your habits are not freakish but shared by many, it's called thrifty common sense.
ask yourself - do these object give you joy?

http://lifehacker.com/declutter-by-asking-one-question-does-this-spark-joy-1651256422
I also do not "do" Christmas.
I am trying hard to de-clutter and attempt to remove 3 items every day.
I also make sure that I do not buy anything to add to the accumulations.
One thing which is unhelpful is that you can only take items to my local re-cycling centre (tip) by car, which I do not have.
De-cluttering is difficult but I've found freecycle can be a god send.

No matter what crap I put up for grabs someone (and usually more than one) lays claim to it.

You don't have the guilt of sending it to landfill, someone else gets some enjoyment from it and best of all they have to come and collect it.
Stuff is not a problem until further stuff won't fit. Then it is time to de-clutter the wardrobe, that cupboard or that shelf. Otherwise DG, life can continue guilt-free and as you say there is always so much else to do that is enjoyable.
Our household is currently enjoying our party-game season which we have enlivened with a stuff-based game called 'What on Earth is That?'. Basically, out comes a storage box and we try to work out what the contents are and why they still exist. Of course this needs more than one player otherwise it is boring and BestMate might not be up for such a caper. Items with a satisfactory back-story go back in the box, the others get into the recycling. Scoring is based on overall box consolidation, the fewer boxes at the end of the process the higher the score.
In this game you have at least to have boxed the stuff at some time in the past. If you are only a light-weight stuff-hoarder such that your stuff is still free-range and not boxed then it is not for you.
oh I know what you mean "a crippling inability to resonate with others" ... I gave up trying to figure it out years back and now I just ask, and as I only buy for close family it usually works out
as for the clutter, for me the only way is to be brutal ... earlier this year I was left with the detritus from dear daughter 3 when she evacuated, taking loads of "stuff" with her but leaving what seemed twice as much behind ... so after a few months of waiting to see if she'd collect it I got the bin bags out and delivered piles of stuff to charity shops and recycling, as well as many others into the rubbish bin ... and not just her stuff, I took a load of my own stuff too ... highly recommended DG, I feel lightheaded at the wonder of cupboards I can open and actually see what I've got, and all of it things I use
Do you cry readily at sentimental things? Music for example? That's Affective Empathy.

Not resonating with other people, that's (a lack of) Cognitive Empathy.

There are plenty of us out here.
(But of course you won't notice, unless we tell you :-)
If you acquire a female, then they generally dispose of stuff, not stopping until you notice something is missing, the other options are death, so someone else just clears the stuff because it means nothing to them, or moving, when you think to yourself 'can I be bothered to pack this up, or shall I chuck it?'
Mine was light too - but that's because my beloved husband & teenage children can't be bothered to actually make the effort.
But I did get an English Heritage Membership from my parents and a bottle of wine from my brother which is perfect! :)
@ John: don't underestimate him! In addition to the list he posted on 17/12 I bet he's also got a book with people's names in it. He notices!
I have a near-morbid fear of chucking stuff out, but not to the point of obsession and keeping everything. Having spent over a decade working for a now-defunct airline, I acquired a heap of their printed ephemera and 'souvenirs' plus tickets etc. In a 1990s frenzy of deluded efficiency I threw most of it out, on the basis I'd never need/refer to it again...

Roll on 20 years and discovering I was almost uniquely observing a major change in the aviation industry during that period, and now I'm trying to record it, the source material has gone. Buying it back (or getting relevant replacements) at 'air fairs' is costing a small fortune.

The sheer tear-inducing joy of discovering I hadn't ejected all of my earliest pay slips proved that never chuck out anything until it is unquestionably beyond further relevance. If there is another half in your life, then deals have to be done to ensure what has to stay (including the other half) is safe for some time to come...
My sentiments exactly, DG. It's just such a pain getting round to disposing of stuff (my old computer has been glowering at me for a year now), but I suppose I'll have to get round to it rather than leave it all for someone else to do.
Especially now I've reached the age where it's my nephews who are giving me jigsaw puzzles and the like for Christmas. Which reminds me, anyone fancy a 1000-piece puzzle of a London view and a London Trivia quiz game?
I'm amazed at how there's not a single dissenting voice (thus far) in today's respondents. I wholeheartedly agree with your views on Christmas gifting - but also share my life and home with three for whom the purchase and distribution of 'stuff' is an essential annual ritual. In me it engenders real anxiety tinged with boredom, which is usually characterised by others as "being miserable". I also accumulate and keep mementoes of all the places I've visited, often as simple as the travel/entry tickets, or a small stone from a beach.
Our family does not bother with gift buying. Even when I was young enough to want gifts, once I turned 11 or so I just asked for cash so I could buy what I wanted in the sales.
Cornish Cockney, for years - now, I believe, incorrectly - I've assumed you were a man!
Thanks to DG - and most of the commenters - for reassuring me that I'm not as, erm, "unique" as my wife thinks I am.
We used to agonise over the amount of possessions we accumulated - until we moved far away from London and acquired a decent living space. Now we're viewed as having a perfectly normal amount of stuff.










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