Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the fifteenth day of the month is "Volume."
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The big stack of holiday cards went out last week and I've been hearing from my bloggy friends (thanks Lisa and Jenny!) that some of them have reached their intended recipients. I ended up buying four packs of stickers at the Hallmark store, where they are more expensive than I would like, but no card went out naked on my account. I still have approximately forty cards left from the great Minted Fiasco of 2022, so if you'd like a card, please fill out the form and I'll send it out ASAP.
In the meantime, I'm a little disappointed in our lack of holiday cards that we've received so far this year. I only have seven hanging up. I know we're still a week and a half out from the holidays, but we won't leave the Christmas decorations up long after Christmas itself, so it makes me kind of sad to know that cards we get later on won't be on display for very long.
That brings up my next question. What do you do with your holiday cards after Christmas? We have two pieces of ribbon over the doorway between our living room and dining room and we attach all our cards there with teeny tiny clothespins I bought just for this purpose during the holidays, but then when we take the decorations down, we take down the cards and put away the clothespins until next year. In our house, the stack of cards sits on my desk until mid-March when I start spring cleaning and then I just dump them all in the recycling, feeling badly about it the whole while, thinking I should have some crafty repurposing activity for them.
What do you do with the cards you receive after the holidays are finished?
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To see what Bestest Friend has to say about volume, go visit her at Too Legit to Quit.
Ohhhh, pick me *wildly waving hand*!!!
ReplyDeleteI have an answer for this. At the end of every Christmas season (early January) I gather all the Christmas cards we've received and I cut the fronts off them. These get saved with my gift bags to serve as lux tags the next year. I LOVE this tradition (my Mom used to have a whole shoebox full of recycled card fronts when I was a kid).
As I'm cutting the fronts off, I usually re-read the notes inside. And the next year it makes me smile because sometimes I recognize the card (for example, Nicole was my Secret Santa last year and I have the front of the card she sent me and just saw it the other day as I was wrapping and it made me so happy). I also try to match the card to the wrapping paper I'm using. It's a fun game, it makes for free tags, and it feels less wasteful and more.
As for photocards, I do toss those...but have several friends that keep them in photo albums. And some other friends display the photocards they receive on their fridge all year long. I heard on a podcast recently that someone keeps photocards and once a decade or so, sends them BACK to the recipients as part of a time-capsule care package.
My mom keeps her holiday cards on her fridge all year long! At least, she keeps the ones with photos on them. I always love looking at them when I go to visit her -- and comparing which cards she got from people we both know vs. which cards I got.
DeleteI've heard the gift tag idea before, but frankly between photo cards, cards with texture, and cards with writing on them, when I tried to do it, I was only able to use about five or six cards! I mean, I guess that's better than nothing, but I didn't think it made too big of a dent in my pile. I'll try it again this year - maybe more people are economizing and doing fewer photo cards.
DeleteMaybe I should rearrange our fridge to hang them up year round. It could be fun to have them up on display longer than we currently do.
Oh - and mine IS in the mail en route to you...but I know the postal service, especially between countries, can be pretty slow this time of year!
ReplyDeleteOh, I know there's still plenty of time! It wasn't a criticism of people, I promise. Just a disappointment about how my timeline doesn't match other people's. It's more a *me* problem.
DeleteI got my card!!! It is gorgeous -- thank you! It is now on the wall, where I tape all the cards we receive. With yours, I have gotten 13 cards which seems like fewer than normal. But I suppose we still have a few days until Christmas. They are taped to the living room wall, where I admire them all December. They are the last bit of Christmas decor that I take down, and I usually stack them in a pile on my desk until I can bring myself to throw them away. Last year, I started saving cards that had wording and images placed in such a way that I can cut them out and use them as gift tags. It was fun to use some of them this year as tags and I will definitely do that again for next year.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should figure out a way to keep them up a bit longer. My husband tends to want all the holiday decor taken down by New Year's, but maybe I could convince him that the cards should stay a tiny bit longer!
DeleteI'm sending you a card too! Er, my cards aren't quite in the mail yet though. Yesterday we got a card from my sister and my husband tried to put it over yours- not so fast! I made sure yours is still highly visible (while my husband said "WHO are these people again?") Hee hee.
ReplyDeleteI know- it's hard to know what to do with cards after the holidays are over. Sometimes I'll save ones that are extra pretty, but then fail to do anything creative with them. I like Elisabeth's idea though. OMG, I know what I'm going to do with yours- I'll save it and turn it into a gift tag for one of my husband's gift next year!!!!! He'll be like "Not these people again!" Heeheeheehee.
I'm enjoying your husband's fervor to hide our card. I mean, he doesn't know us, but WE ARE SO IMPORTANT!
DeletePlease, please, please do this Jenny. And report back.
DeleteWhen I was a kid, we used the fronts of the previous year's cards to make our own cards for our classmates. We cut out stuff and pasted it on construction paper and wrote our own message inside.
ReplyDeleteMy mother's card list was massive, and she went through at least five or six boxes each year.
I don't send cards. It's worky and I feel uneasy about the environmental impact. The ones I get end up in the recycle bin, and we all know how dodgy that is anymore.
I used to have a next-door neighbor who mailed a Christmas card to me every year. That always mystified and amused me. I mean, we're right next door! We were forever chatting across the driveway or whatever. Just toss it in the door if you really want me to have it.
I hand delivered four cards to people who live on our block. I did mail them to three or four people who live in our town, but not in our neighborhood, though. It would not occur to me to mail one to our next door neighbor!
DeleteNance, you're right about the environmental impact. I try to think of it the other way, as in, keeping the Post Office running, since so much communication and bill paying is online these days.
DeleteMine is coming! I keep up my cards way longer (haha, just took down the cards from last year just a few weeks ago - and then I usually wrap a ribbon around the stack and save them in the closet), so I don't really plan to have cards send out at the beginning of December already (although maybe I should start planning ahead more for next year if people only display them until Christmas).
ReplyDeleteMaybe most people keep decorations up longer! I'll try and convince my husband that we should leave the cards up a bit longer.
DeleteThank you for my card! It's lovely and it brightened up my day when it came in.
ReplyDeleteI used to put all of mine on a cork board in our mudroom, but then a good friend gifted me this amazing card holder; I must share it on the blog soon.
I keep my cards. I know, I'm a hoarder!
Way back in the day, I used to cut the front portion of the card away from the inside. (you know, the pretty face of the card) I'd fold it in half and use them as gift labels. This is a trick I learned my from Aunt Trisha; she still does it.
We have a card holder, too, but rarely need to use it for cards. I hang small ornaments on it, generally. LOL. I'd love to see yours!
DeleteI think we have gotten about 8 cards so far, and 6 of them are photo cards. I have tried saving the fronts for tags the following year, with mixed success. I may try that this year, we shall see. Of course, not with the photo ones.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't gotten any mail yet this week. It's Thursday morning as I write this. Our post office is understaffed and overworked, so they are concentrating on delivering packages. It's strange. The same thing happened last year, though, so at least I know what is going on. I'm hoping that when our mail resumes (today? tomorrow?) there will be more cards, and not just a bunch of catalogs and so on.
Interesting about your mail and how your post office focuses on packages. We have gotten mail every day - bills, flyers, and the like, but not very many cards. We'll have to see how it all shakes out in the next week or so.
DeleteI got your card yesterday! It came so quickly. I hope mine finds its way to you asap. Canada Post is often slow, so I was so excited to get yours. I put all my cards in various places in the house - mantel, piano, side tables, etc. They are all over! I keep every single card (this is how I make next year's list, from cards received, because I refuse to send cards to people who don't reciprocate after doing it for years and feeling sad about it). All the cards are in boxes so when I die my kids will have to have a bonfire or something. I'll be drowning in cards by then.
ReplyDeleteYou keep them all?! Where do you store them? How does this work? I need more details!
DeleteI do understand the tendency to only send to people who reciprocate with cards, but I know there are people out there who like to receive cards, but not send them. My accountability buddy who lives in New Hampshire has never sent me one, but I know she likes them! So I keep pestering people with my cards until I'm explicitly told they don't want one!
That's so nice of you! I used to send certain people cards who didn't reciprocate, but then I just got sad about it. I know they like it but in my mind, if they really like receiving, then they should send back. I know that's not particularly generous of me but here we are. You'll be on my list for life now!
DeleteSo what I do is I rubber band all the cards together so I have all the same year together, then I put it in a cardboard box. I have squeezed the past 20 or so years into about five cardboard boxes (like shoe boxes) so I should be able to keep going. I just don't know how I can get rid of them. I mean, I know how, but emotionally I don't.
We don't get a lot of cards - just some family and a friend of two - maybe less than 15 all told. This year we only have three so far. Not sure if people are not doing cards this year or if we've fallen off people's radars? Our cards go on the mantel, tucked among the tinsel. After Christmas, I put all the cards, including our own, in a Holiday Card binder. I have a binder with with card sized sheet protectors - each sheet can hold two 5x7 cards. I'm very much a sentimental hoarder about correspondence.
ReplyDeleteWe keep our Christmas stuff up much longer than my Husband would like. Mostly out of laziness. My oldest' s birthday is the second week of January, so we try to have it down by then.
Another person who keeps all their cards! I did not know this was a thing that happened! How many binders do you have? Do you go through the binders regularly? I need more details about this!
DeleteWe are mostly past the era of sending and receiving physical cards. I will send some via email aand of course, post my wishes here in due course.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I rarely check my email and I think it would make me sad to not receive physical cards! I guess I do understand that it's a lot of work and kind of expensive, so I understand when people don't send me cards.
DeleteThis year is really testing my belief that I would rather my loved ones not feel pressure to send cards--because I believe that strongly, but oh, I love to get cards, and this year is not coming through. Yet. We'll say yet.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not alone is hoping there's a surge in cards in the next week. I don't want to pressure people to send me cards, either. I'm just a tiny bit disappointed in my mailbox this year.
DeleteWe loved your card! You'll be getting on in the mail from us later this week. You will have to excuse the scrap paper I wrote a note on. As I said in my note, I do not own stationery! But as you will see, I have really awful hand writing. I have to work really hard to make it legible! So no one would really want mail from me. Ha! But I wanted to slip a note in with our Christmas card. Hopefully you can read it. ;)
ReplyDeleteI hang up our Christmas cards on strips of ribbon. And then when the holiday is over, I recycle the cards that are recyclable and toss the rest. It does feel wasteful, but I am not someone who keeps things in general! I keep a copy of our Christmas card for the boys' baby books, though.
I don't send Christmas cards myself, but I love to receive them! It just feels silly for me, a single person, to send a Christmas card, lol. For a few years, I would send cards with heartfelt messages inside but that was so much work!
ReplyDeleteI'm not very sentimental when it comes to Christmas cards so I take them down when I'm removing all of my Christmas decorations (usually the week after Christmas) and recycle them.