We have two sons ages 25 and 28. Last Christmas morning we pulled out the old Super Nintendo that I had saved in the attic. . Those two grown men went beserk! They played and played and laughed their heads off.
Also saved the giant tub of Legos. S1 was a Lego fanatic.
I saved all their Dr. Seuss books as well as other favorite books or book series, a few favorite stuffed animals and dolls, classic board games and classic toys like Legos.
Four kids go through toys and books, but I have kept the Brio train set, wooden blocks, 8 American Girl dolls and many accessories, Groovy Girl dolls and accessories, the Playmobil 3-story doll house (on loan to a friend’s granddaughter at grandma’s house), favorite books that survived, some board games, first Christmas outfit for each child, Cabbage Patch knock-off dolls that my mother made for each child.
My kids LOVED playing house/kitchen/restaurant (no wonder they are all foodies now!!!). We had oodles of play food. I think I have a play grocery cart full of it still! And a couple of their favorite playdoh sets.
You know, they didn’t have an over abundance of toys, but they really enjoyed most of the stuff they had. Still have many of the board games too, but we still use them! (don’t think we saved Pretty Pretty Princess - omg, we played that MILLIONS of times!!)
I gave our Brio and Playmobile to my baby brother. I’m not convinced it got appreciated properly or saved. But what can you do. I still have the Legos and the K’nex. Maybe there will be grandchildren some day.
One son who was given the chance to request saves when we were downsizing for our move 3 years ago. I was pleasantly surprised that he had no saves, especially some awful handmade art projects and the like. I took pictures of many Lego projects then dismantled them (tough luck kid- he can always reassemble them if he ever wants to but there was no way I was going to make room for them). Legos and Duplos were definitely saved- especially since we had at least two buckets of generic ones no longer sold. My architect B-in-law always said you can never have too many Legos.
We also saved a couple of toys that had meaning for us- such as a shuttle and a fighter plane I believe (they’re all in a plastic bin up on a closet shelf here that I never look at).
Son never really got into the K’nex he got one birthday party, nor did he get into the Brio train set- they’re gone. Every so many years I tried to get son to go over toys from his distant past- he never would and I did donate over the years.
Thank goodness the threat of him taking any school papers with caused him to throw out HS notes/math spirals- after he had his college degree. Some year I may go through the baby stuff I had saved. That local Sunday paper from his birth date will never be tossed. I also tossed some stuff I had saved from my youth- by now if son has no interest in it he never will.
I moved a long way from my home state and my sister has found a few things from the childhood days while going through our family basement- nothing I wanted for over 40 years so it was pitched.
Our family was never into antiques and immigrant generations either brought little with them and /or couldn’t afford to acquire things worth keeping. Exceptions are my mom’s Shirley Temple and Norwegian dolls. Those likely have collector value if no one wants to keep them. I’m not a collector so they won’t become mine. Makes life a lot less complicated.
H says I am saving way too much… I think my (future) grandchildren will love playing at my house.
Here’s what I still have:
Marbleworks
Fisher-Price - the castle, the farm, the medical kit, snap lock beads, stacking rings
American Girls - dolls and clothes
Duplos/Legos
Lincoln Logs
Tupperware Shape-O Ball
Unifix cubes
Breyer horses and the stable
Wooden puzzles
Wooden blocks
Nesting stacking cups and cubes
Darda race track
K’nex
Play food and dishes
Card games - an entire bin full - Uno, Skip-Bo, playing cards
Chess sets - several of these
Memory games - several different versions
Matchbox cars, road, and road signs
Beanie babies (lots!)
Magnetic letters/numbers
Lots of board games, clothes, and books, too…
Shhhh! Please don’t tell Mr. H that I still have all this.
Original metal Thomas the Tank Engine trains, legos, K’nex, wooden blocks, Fisher Price plastic railroad tracks that fit the Thoams trains, hard plastic animals of all varieties. And books. SO many books. My parents got rid of all my toys – we were an Army family, too – but getting rid of my books was beyond the pale to me.
Still have the Thomas t-shirts, sox and PJs, too.
Legos (lots!)
Hot Wheels/Matchbox (some from hubby’s and my childhood, lots newer)
Some stuffed animals (snake, clam, other weird ones, a few super cute ones)
Lots of games
The rest got sold and donated when we moved to Hawaii.
We gave away to younger cousins and to orphanages/refugees all the toys & kiddie books, EXCEPT the stuffed animal friend they used to sleep with.
The bulky toy we held onto the longest was a wagon. On more than one occasion, we used it to hold a beer keg.
we have a huge thing of wooden trains that we are keeping; both thomas and brio. @momofadult : Love the idea of putting it under the christmas tree! thanks
keeping duplos; marble run, darda set and wooden blocks. Have donated or sold SO MANY other things; keeping the best of the favorites.
DHs parents have a few toys from his childhood that our kids have played with. They still have crayons in their original box from the mid-70s. Its fun for all to get out those toys.
Now I’m wondering what happened to all those Matchbox cars my son had…did we sell or keep???
Curious George. Pokemon figures. Star Wars Lego sets.
From my own childhood I have a box of Steiff animals, a doll house, a box of Charlie Brown items, and my set of AA Milne Winnie-the-Pooh books. My husband has his Hardy Boys books.
I have kept the Legos and the Brios and wooden blocks, one box of school work and art for each kid, and one box of saved awards, news clippings, etc. per kid. (originally I had scrapbooks that got too full, so I went to decorative, acid free boxes.) We still have some board games, and all the Nintendo/Wii etc. because they still play them once in a while! Each kid has a bedroom bookcase with whatever books they have kept. I have a box of their childhood books, mostly books that were signed by a grandparent or that are not easily available, or that they memorized. So I didnt keep any Dr. Seuss books, but did keep a book we bought in Hawaii about a hippo, one I’ve never seen anywhere else.
This week I sat with my Almost College Freshman daughter as she went through every single item in her room to decide what to keep, toss, donate. The things she kept were not necessarily what I would have guessed she would love. My oldest is home for a few weeks this summer, and he is doing the same thing. I hope to rope in my middle kid later this summer for the same purge.
I don’t care what they keep, pitch or donate, but I think it is important that they do it themselves. There are a few things that I have added back to the “save” boxes because “I” am emotionally attached to the item, although they are not. But I try to stay out of it as much as possible.
My brothers in law are still a little miffed that their mom got rid of all their (original) Star Wars toys without asking if they cared. I’m trying to avoid that, while minimizing the stuff in my own house. None of my three kids is settled enough to take their stuff. But I want them to know where it is and I want them to make the decisions about what to keep.
I do not care about them personally. But my kid (25 y o ) told me to keep her Bennie Babies and all her trophies and medals. I told her that when she moves to a more permanent place (she is renting for the next 4 years), then she will have to take them with her or dispose of them as we will be moving at about the same time. I have no sentimental attachments to any or in fact to any art that I myself produce (as my hobby). The only concern that I have is what to do with the tons upon tons of the photo books. the rest just got to go…
Brio train set that is mounted on a board, stored under our guest bed.
Huge rubber made tubs filled with Brio horses and other horse related toys.
Matchbox cars
Duplo
Wooden blocks
Muffy bears
A small amount of Kinects and a box of Tinker Toys
Legos but no instructions
Kapla blocks
Books
I have a Barbie dream house but I just haven’t found anyone to give it to.
I also still have all the board games and wooden puzzles. I also save the higher quality Ravensberger puzzles.
I think we also still have some plastic dinosaurs.
My youngest still has a ton of stuffed animals but we have purged quite a few.
Wooden horses on a stick.
In the spring we had two young relatives come visit. The horse on a stick and the Kapla blocks were a big hit. It was cut to see my 25 yr old down on the ground playing.
I also have a cupboard full of favorite VHS movies. Not sure why I keep them.
Did anyone else have Rokenbok building sets? http://www.rokenbok.com/
I’m saving them for those grandchildren I’ll have someday 
…but in mean time my nieces and nephews love to set up elaborate construction sites when they visit.
We still have a lot of stuff from my daughters. Yesterday I dug out a bunch of sea animal stuffed toys and brought them to church for the Sunday school lesson on Jonah. Both sets of beanie babies are there so they had pairs for Noah’s ark.
One treasured collection are the Tammy dolls from my childhood. My grandfather made furniture and my grandmother made clothes using paper towels to make patterns.
I’ve got the same list (legos, brio, American girl dolls) as everyone else. In a clear-out last summer, I sent my son (age 26) a box full of his action figures, all well used. He and his roommate apparently had a wonderful time reliving their childhoods…not sure what he did with them (I suspect made some extra cash on ebay!). I think the Star Wars model ships should go this summer.
I’ve also got a huge box of VHS tapes, everything from Disney to homemade compilations of stuff like Babar and Raffi.
And audio tapes too.
What to do with the VHS and audio tapes? Aren’t they supposedly disintegrating or something? I would love disposal ideas because we have a huge collection of kids’ movies on VHS, and I can’t think of anyone who’d want them. Church nurseries and daycare centers around here aren’t interested, and videotapes can’t be sold for a nickel at tag sales. We’ve bought DVDs/blu rays of the best kid films (Disney classics, etc.), and I don’t care if I ever see Barney and Friends or the Olsen Twins Adventures ever again. But that’s a lot of junk to consign to a landfill.
I’ve kept many of the same items as others here. I haven’t seen anyone mention Waffle Blocks yet - they were a huge favorite for all my kids. They’re big, so they require a lot of storage space. No one wants me to throw away the Playmobil stuff, which was also a major deal. Christmas morning and well into the afternoon was always about assembling some huge Playmobil thing.