Parents, we’ve all been there. Brought home the new toy from Grandma’s, put it together, and an hour later the kids have broken it. Anna Kaladish Reynolds, a Texas mom, has had enough, and she’s got recommendations.

The current minimalism fad might be the only sane response to having so much cheap junk in our lives. When considering Christmas gifts to buy or receive, many weary shoppers find that the most appealing present seems to be nothing at all. It’s a weariness induced by material overload of items that just don’t work.

She talks about the experiences of others with kitchen appliances, tools, dishes, and even TVs breaking not long after purchase.

We all suffer under the madness, but why hasn’t anyone reined it in? Take Amazon, for starters. Anyone who has spent a weekday at home in the suburbs will see a parade of Amazon delivery trucks carting boxes of junk to American homes on a daily basis.

Another factor is undoubtedly what can be termed broadly as “influencer culture.” Starting in early childhood, internet personalities supply an endless stream of “unboxing” videos. In these odes to unrestrained materialism, content creators — some of them small children — remove the packaging from brand-new, straight-off-the-shipping-container merchandise to show viewers their “haul.” Notably, there are rarely if ever follow-up videos demonstrating how these items held up to daily wear and tear. There is just the video of something shiny and new, which viewers can, of course, usually purchase using an Amazon affiliate link.

In addition to the miscellany of life that is so easily broken and unusable, there is a steady stream of cheaply manufactured T-shirts, plastic toys, water bottles, seasonal décor, and infuriating knickknacks that make their way into the average household.

That’s when she turns to more serious questions about the new craze of minimalism among Millennials, which is based on the saying of Arts and Crafts guru William Morris, “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

The downside, she says, will be that future generations will miss out on heirlooms, even if they don’t want them now.

So, what to do?

As is so often repeated with increasing layers of meaning, “They don’t make things like they used to.” Your grandfather’s tools may have been rusting in someone’s garage for decades, but do not throw them out! You can clean good tools, and they will continue to function long after all the latest purchases from Amazon crumple into a sad monument to greed, cheap labor, and abject materialism.

If you must exchange Christmas gifts this year, let it be something old and sturdy, homemade, or the gift of an experience. Let’s give the landfills a break.

Read the whole thing here.