Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Every day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined topic chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the twenty-first day of the month is "Decision."
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I predicted this would happen and it has. I am sitting on all of the holiday cards we received AND a huge box of leftover cards from the Minted Fiasco of 2022. All of you have offered perfectly lovely ideas for what to do with them (recycle them as gift tags! keep the cards to use to determine who to send cards to next year! put them in photo albums!), but ours are just sitting in the same spot they've been since I removed them in early January.
We are having guests over in two weeks and we're going to be gone a lot next weekend, so I'm trying to clean up the clutter problems NOW, but instead I'm just sitting here acting indecisively about what to do with these cards.
Up next: I will regale you with my internal debate about what to do with to do about the placemat situation for our dining room table. (No, I will not. I am struggling with finding placemats that work for me and I think I'm just going to have to settle. If you ever visit my home, please don't say a word about the placemats.)
Have you dealt with your holiday cards yet?
https://stjudesranch.org/recycled-card-program/. This is for greeting cards and old fashioned holiday cards, I think with a lovely generic photo on the front that they can repurpose. I'm not sure they'll take photo cards with pictures of people on the front/back - but maybe?
ReplyDeleteThe restrictions are so great that I can recycle roughly four cards. Ha. They do accept brand new cards, though, so I might send them some from my collection that I probably won't send. Thanks for the link.
DeleteI suspected as much... I'm sorry it was not much help!
DeleteNo, I have not, dammit. Why did you remind me? They're still sitting on the window seat behind the chair, conveniently out of sight and out of mind.
ReplyDeleteUntil now.
Sorry! You can leave them in their convenient hiding spot until next Christmas!
DeleteWe stopped sending cards (except by email), so we don’t have many to deal with. And deal with them we do. 😀
ReplyDeleteI hear you. I just need to deal with them, I guess!
DeleteYes, this isn't a problem in our house due to low volume of sending/receiving. But we have plenty of non-seasonal clutter to make up for it;-)
ReplyDeleteOne of our dog-walking related hobbies is seeing which house will be the last to take their Christmas decorations down and I think everyone's finally gotten them down. Usually we see a few stragglers into March but I guess with the good weather everyone's gotten it done.
There are still two houses in our neighborhood that still have their trees up and light them at night. I know this because Hannah and I usually walk by at least one of them on our evening walks. Do you want odds on whether or not they'll be taken down before or after Easter?
DeleteMy holiday cards are in a box to be saved until I die/ move into a home and my kids have to deal with decades of holiday card hoarding. I was on top of my game this year, and have already created my list for next year (you are on it and you will be until the aforementioned scenario occurs, because I deeply appreciate people who place the same value on receiving/ sending holiday cards that I do!).
ReplyDeleteYay! I'm so glad I made the list! I do admire your habit of keeping all your cards, but I'm pretty sure that's not going to be my solution.
DeleteI finally took my holiday cards down last week (yes, I know). I dealt with them by putting them into piles of "keep," "lovingly discard," or "cut up into gift tags." Then I tossed the discard pile (lovingly) and chopped up the gift tag pile. Then I put the cut-outs into a ziploc bag and put it in the bin with the holiday wrapping. Then I used magnets to put the ones in the keep pile up on my fridge.
ReplyDeleteLovingly discard! I think that may be what I do with the whole pile. Oh, boy. I feel terrible for even considering it!
DeleteI am quite relentless with my cards; I LOVE cards, I send them out each year and plan to continue doing so...forever. Once the holidays are over, I go through my cards carefully, enjoy looking at them one last time and cut off the fronts of those I plan to keep to use as gift tags the first year.
ReplyDeleteSadly...the rest (unless they have glitter etc) go in the recycling bin.
Yes, I should be as relentless as you. I think we might have a snow day later this week and maybe I'll make going through the cards a snow day goal.
DeleteI finally just took mine down last week! And I dealt with them... by throwing them into one of the bins of Christmas decorations, which really means I'll deal with them next year. I don't get as many as you, so maybe that "solution" wouldn't be great for you.
ReplyDeleteOne year my brother-in -law made a very cool ornament out of old Christmas cards. I'll bet if you googled that you could find some sort of tutorial. I'm not sure how hard it was, but I will say he's an artist so things like that come pretty naturally to him.
One last thing- so you remember my husband kept asking me who you were when I had your card up. After a couple months he started referring to you as "the midwestern couple," which was really funny because I'm positive I never mentioned where you were from. I guess you just look like midwesterners??? I don't know.
Well, we are midwestern, so I guess I'm not mad that he's calling us that! Did you say we were from Wisconsin or something the first time you told him who we were? I need to know more about our reputation with your husband!
DeleteSo I think I commented that I put our cards in photo albums. Funny story - this week, I found a stack of cards on the Husband's desk. I said, to him, "Oh, I'll just put these in the photo album for Christmas cards."
ReplyDeleteAnd he says to me, "But I have a folder in the filing cabinet for Christmas cards."
And I say, "But I've been putting Christmas cards in this photo album."
And he says, "But I've been putting Christmas cards in the filing cabinet."
We have a lot of difficult conversations like this in our marriage.
I have to admit - I've never understood placemats.
Ha ha ha! Talk about miscommunication. My husband has no idea what happens to the cards, so this conversation would never happen in our house!
DeleteMy holiday cards (that we received) are still up, and I still love looking at them. I DO want to hear about place mats actually because I feel the same way. Right now, we have the protective pads that came with our table on the table all the time because I cannot solve my place mat dilemma.
ReplyDeleteI bought some placemats that were made of bamboo, but my husband and I weren't crazy about the shape or how hard they were to clean, so I went to Target and bought some just regular cotton/poly ones and they're FINE, but not what I had in mind. We just got this secondhand table from my father-in-law and the wood is glorious and beautiful and I don't want to mess up the table, but the placemats just aren't perfect and it's driving me crazy. Do I go back to Target? Maybe find a fancy Williams Sonoma or Restoration Hardware? Do I dare to try and make my own? Ugh. It's been quite a ongoing THING in our house.
DeleteThis is real life stuff! I have copious amounts of storage (not bragging, I swear) so I'm able to keep them. I bind them up by year with a rubber band. That said, there will be a time in the future that I will have to recycle them all. 😩
ReplyDeleteYou and Nicole are card keeping twins!
DeleteI am so unsentimental about holiday cards, and cards in general. They are taken down when I take down all of my holiday decor and recycled (if possible). I wish I were more loving with them, but I'm just... not.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, your way is the right one. I will end up tossing all of these cards and it would be so much better if I could do with less drama on my end!
DeleteMy holiday cards are still up :)
ReplyDeleteI'm in awe. My husband would not let me get away with that!
Delete