Dear Santa. We need to talk.

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas. Obviously, because of my last post. But also as part of this Happiness Project thing I'm doing, which necessitates decluttering. Getting rid of the stuff your house is stuffed with is one of the ways to enlightenment, or something.

We've been crafting, insanely. I don't believe that any of us have enjoyed it. The rule has been to use as much damn tissue paper and glitter as you can throw at anything, and then not cry when it goes into the bin.

(How did we end up with all this stuff? Especially when my children's hobbies consist largely of watching television and jumping on the furniture.)

Going through the shelves was mind-boggling. Why have I been saving yogurt pots? We never use yogurt pots. Why haven't we done this Wooden Spoon puppet kit? Maybe because you have to have a degree in engineering to get the things to stay together?

I know Santa reads my blog. You know how close we are. So there are some things I need to bring to Santa's attention. Not that I'm ungrateful, or anything. But he needs to know.

Firstly, about this Felting Machine. By inserting a felt shape and a piece of clothing into the felting machine, and pressing the button up and down 250,000 times, you can loosely attach the shape to the clothing in order to transform it into something called a 'catwalk creation'. A slight side-effect is that the clothing ends up with little holes in it. I'd like to take a poll of people who have one of these, and find out just how many ended up using fabric glue instead.

Next up - the Hannah Montana Cut and Create. Because toys are so much better with pictures of Miley Cyrus on them. With the battery-powered Cut and Create, you use the wand like a pen to make perforations in paper, which can then be torn along to create a cut. Not unlike a pair of scissors, in fact.

Glue and scissors take up a considerably smaller amount of space.

Finally we come to the large box which contains the Nick Baker Pond and Rock Pool Kit. This isn't as easy. It's an educational toy. It demands respect.

This week we booked our summer holiday, the main criteria for which was going somewhere with rock pools. We have honestly organised our holiday around the Nick Baker Pond and Rock Pool Kit.  So if you're on the Welsh coast this summer, and you see a family with clothes covered in glitter and felt shapes, who are carrying a rock pool kit, that would be us. Please wave.