It’s time to put away the Christmas items in our house (and mail out the presents we bought for people in Poland), but I’m having a hard time deciding what to do with the Christmas cards on our fridge. It wasn’t that much work to send mine out, but it took time, and I know every person who sent us one went through the same process. How can I just let that work get all moldy in the trash can?
There is one card I won’t be throwing out. This one:
Why? Because I took that picture! These are the nieces of my best friend from college, and I took this picture at her wedding in July. I’m really flattered they chose it for the Christmas card (I like to tell myself it is the same way I would feel if I was ever published), and it’s the one card I know I’ll always keep from this year.
You’ve boxed up your nativity, your stockings, and your ornaments, but what do you do with the Christmas cards?
January 12th, 2009 on 12:31 am
I just recycled most of them. I keep the ones with photos. I used to keep all them but it’s just too much!
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January 12th, 2009 on 1:07 am
I decided to keep all of ours from this year since it was the first Christmas we were married. I might sort through them in future years but it is just too hard to sort through them right now. I have created a Christmas card box for the garage where I will put all the cards we got as well as several copies of the card we sent out.
I decided it would be fun to save copies of all of our Christmas cards starting from the year we were married for each of our future kids. They will then have a fun keepsake to take with them when they move out…18+ years of family Christmas cards!
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January 12th, 2009 on 1:10 am
Why can’t I spell/think? I meant throw…not through, gosh darn it! Must go to sleep!
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January 12th, 2009 on 1:28 am
I like to keep them and pack them away with the Christmas decorations, and then look at them again next year. Especially with the photo cards. It’s fun to compare the pictures of families from one year to the next.
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January 12th, 2009 on 5:55 am
I used to save them all, but I am trying to cut down on clutter. So now I save the ones with photos (in the front of my photo album) and a few that are personalized or have a letter. I cut up the fronts of the others to use as gift tags for next year, and recycle whatever’s left.
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January 12th, 2009 on 6:40 am
Chrissie-I like your gift tag idea! What fun. I’m all about recycling projects.
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January 12th, 2009 on 7:43 am
We keep all of the pictures and put them on our fridge to enjoy for the year.
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January 12th, 2009 on 8:05 am
Mind you I haven’t actually gotten to it yet….I plan on trying to scrapbook them as well as wedding invitations that we’ve received. I think it’s just kinda fun to have something to back through and look, laugh at, and remember those years fondly.
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January 12th, 2009 on 8:08 am
Jenny-My Grandma does that and it’s so fun to look through her photos and see how people have changed. Of course she has lived in the same place her entire life, and most of the people who sent her wedding invites live there as well, so I actually know them and grew up with their kids. I don’t know if my own kids will be as interested in looking at a bunch of strangers someday.
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January 12th, 2009 on 8:40 am
I’m with most everyone else. I keep the ones with pictures with our Christmas decorations so I can look through them next year. The other’s I just recycle.
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January 12th, 2009 on 9:04 am
I’m thinking of scanning all of our Christmas cards. If I ever get around to making a Blurb book of pictures for 2008, I can include the Christmas cards we received. That way I can keep them without actually keeping them.
Of course it would be helpful if my printer had a scanner on it…then I wouldn’t have to go somewhere else to do it.
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January 12th, 2009 on 9:09 am
Hi, I m Sarah I found you blog on Jenna Flom’s blog any ways, We make ornaments out of them
similar to ones done in this tutorial http://www.allfreecrafts.com/christmas/card-ornaments.shtml … I use a piece from each card I received then write the year on the ornament its a lot of fun and a neat way to display them the next year!
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January 12th, 2009 on 9:14 am
DONATE them! St. Jude’s has a program where you can send in the front half of your cards and the children remake them into new cards, which people can purchase. You’re freeing yourself of all the cards, and knowing that you are giving less fortunate children something to do, and a way to help raise money for St. Jude’s. Information is here (http://www.stjudesranch.org/help_card.php), but I will be posting about it on my blog this week as well.
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January 12th, 2009 on 9:32 am
I haven’t quite decided yet. I like the scrapbook idea, or maybe just even cut the pictures or the messages you like and included them in the Photo Album of the year (that I will hopefully start doing this year…)
Donating is a great idea too (and you can still keep the words and pictures that way).
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January 12th, 2009 on 9:59 am
My mother always had a red and green bucket that is pulled out at Christmas and the new cards are added each year. It then sits in the closet waiting on the next year. I think that the bucket it finally time that my mother sorts her cards since it is overflowing. But it was always nice to flip through the old cards.
I do not have anything to store them in yet but I put all of mine in a file for next year where I must find something to store them in permantly.
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January 12th, 2009 on 10:12 am
I purchased a red leather scrapbook and I’m going to put all my Christmas cards in it throughout the years. I’ll store it with Christmas stuff and so when I pull all taht stuff out every year, it’ll go on the coffee table. At the end of the Holiday season, I’ll put that years’ cards into the book and store it away.
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January 12th, 2009 on 10:41 am
I also cut the front off of mine to use as gift tags in upcoming years (works especially well with kraft paper wrapping!) And photo cards go into the photos box. I really like the donation idea, though! I could certainly clear out my box of future tags.
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January 12th, 2009 on 11:21 am
I keep them all for a year, so that next christmas I can be sure to send everyone a card who sent me one the year before. I should just start a list though…. Then i keep the picture ones and throw out (or recycle for my crafts, some have cool designs or whatnot and they make great tags!) the ones without pictures.
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January 12th, 2009 on 11:25 am
ooh fun! i like all of the ideas. these days, most of the cards i got were photo cards. so i have purchased a photo album where i can just slide the card into the slot! since i only get a handful of cards each year, the photo album will last me a few years!
my friend does this with birthday pictures for her kids. she has an album that has photos from the party, celebration, etc… and then the back of the album is devoted to cards. i thought it was a cute idea and such an efficient way to keep everything in one place!
although, i like the idea of the blurb book! there are cards that have my gramma’s handwriting that i like to keep so i can always “have” that small piece of her.
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January 12th, 2009 on 11:42 am
I decided to scrapbook all the cards with photos. My mom always kept the photo cards in our photo albums and it was cool looking back and seeing what people I know looked like at a certain time in my life.
I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with the card ones, so currently they are all just sitting in the scrapbook waiting for a future purpose.
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January 12th, 2009 on 12:55 pm
gorgeous photo Jenna!
I have a box full of christmas/birthday/everything cards from anyone that has ever sent one to me. The ones from college and before is stored in my parents warehouse and the ones from after college are still with me. But I need a bigger box after the wedding cards. I can’t bear to throw any cards away.
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January 15th, 2009 on 10:47 am
I scrapbook them and put them at the end of my own Christmas photos. It is fun to go back year to year and see them.
Yours is SO going in the scrapbook!
And I love that picture you took by the way!
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January 18th, 2009 on 2:46 pm
Those are our girls!!!! That is our card!!! I’m so happy you blogged about it and that it means something to you. We’ve taken professional shots of the girls every year for our Christmas card and we’ve never gotten more compliments on our Christmas card than this year with your amazing talents. Thank you so much for taking the pictures you took. We also made a calendar we gave to all our relatives, made with the rest of the photos you took, and it turned out really nice.
Thank you, thank you. b
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