What to Do with All the X-mas Cards We Receive?

we cut out the nice ones and make gift tags for the following year. I do however stay away from any glitter cards, as a piece of glitter can eaily get in a child's eye and do a lot of damage.

I found out about a program several years ago through St. Jude's Ranch, in which they reuse cards for charity. You just put them in a big envelope and send them on their way. I think it is a great way to reuse and do something good at the same time. Here is a link with more info and the address to send the cards to.

http://stjudesranch.org/help_card.php

There are lots of good suggestions... but I hope you pick this one!! Happy holidays!

After Christmas I make gift tags from the front of the card and reuse them for following year ;-)

You can make magnets or ornaments with the cards. Collect the lids to the frozen drink cans. Then you can cut a circle out of the Christmas card, then glue the circle into the lid. Makes a nice little metal frame for it. Then attatch a magnet to the back or some ribbon on the top. You can add glitter or fancy materials to it too if you want. I usually do this with a copy of the Christmas card I make and mail out. My Christmas cards so far have been my daughter (3) sitting on Santa's lap. Turns out super cute!

I also make gift tags or let my kids hae the front of the card for crafts. They even use the front of the card on construction paper for cards the next year. Some cards also make great scrapbook pages. It takes a little preparation but the results can be fanstastic--plus you save by not buying fancy scrapbook accessories.

We keep them in a basket and every day during the coming year we pull one out and pray for the person who sent it.

K.,

For Christmas you can either tape them around door frames or hang them from wide ribbons (we hang ours in our front entryway for everyone to see).

After Christmas we take the picture cards from our closest friends, cut out the kids and paste the picture to a poster board. Then I label the names of each child under their picture. I've found this helps my kids keep track of "families" and see their "friends" grow up. We put the "friends" posterboard up in the kids playroom for them to see on a regular basis. (These are usually the kids of OUR friends (Mom and Dad) that my kids don't get to see that often. This way when we do get together with the big group, my kids always know names with faces, who are siblings, etc. The other kids (and parents) are always amazed that my kids have such good memories - haha little do they know.)

Also, we have made tags with the non-picture cards also. My girls think this is a fun craft. Some of the really cute ones I have also cut up and used for the kids' scrapbooks.

I hope this helps,

Sara

Good Morning K.,
I save the picture of families and either put in photo album or on frig...... I let my grandsons use the others for craft projects. They have made ornaments out of them , glue & glitter... messy but they have fun! Also, some have such neat pictures that they could be framed!
A.

We use the ones with pictures and special notes and use them as decorations on our family room tree. Ones that are the generic Merry Christmas signed the family...fronts are cut off and put in a box to go to a charity that collects them. We have 15 years of pictures from friens and family around the country. If anything ever happened to one of their homes I could at least replace a few family pictures.

I tear off the front of the cards and donate them to a local preschool. They use them for crafts and for practice with cutting.

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With all the fronts of traditional holiday cards, I recycle as to-from gift tags for the following year. With all the photo cards & actual photos, I tape them neatly to the glass doors of a bookcase in our family room, and leave them up for the following year. If it is possible to do it neatly, I may cut off the holiday greeting part so they are not so out of place the rest of the year. I love to see these photos during the year, since people went to so much trouble and expense, and then at Thanksgiving time, I take them down and place them into a photo album so I can get ready for the current year Christmas photos.

I keep them and let the kids cut them the next year to make ornaments for gifts, or cut into christmas shapes and use as gift tags instead of buying them.

At the end of the season they go into my recycle bin to declutter my house. I like the other suggestions but will likely continue just putting them in the recycle bin. I have been in my same house for more than 25 years and thankfully did not save 25 boxes of annual cards. There is a website called "fly lady" that gives advice about decluttering your house.

We keep our cards in a decorative basket during the Christmas season. I got so tired of taping them to stuff to display them. After the season has ended - usually when we are putting away our tree and other decorations - I do toss them. I may keep some of the photo ones, if they will fit in our family photo album. I don't think there is any need, nor do I think people expect, for you to keep them all year and store them etc.

I found a "photo album" at the dollar store just for those simple holiday cards with pictures. If it didn't fit, we cut out the picuture. It's a great way for kids to learn who familiy is that are out of town.

Hi K. Just keep the ones that touch your heart because if you continue to keep them all you'll have cards stack to the ceiling!!!

I have been saving the photo cards (with the idea of putting them in an album someday) and recycling the others, except for the cards from grandparents, which I am trying to keep for the kids (but may run out of room.)

I save the cards for a year and the next year we use them to make gift tags or jewelry boxes. We don't save them for longer than a year.

I was glad we saved ours because we had several people die unexpectedly this year. I saved their Christmas card because it was the last thing I had from them and put it in a scrapbook. It's nice to have those momentos, but I wouldn't take up a lot of space saving them for more than one year!

My Mom made felt books with the fronts of Christmas cards. She took about 5 8x11ish sized pieces of felt, ran a stitch along the left side to make the book. She cut off the fronts of the Christmas cards for that year, took a pair of pinking shears and cut around the card front (to make it look fancy! remember this was probably 35 years ago....). Then she glued the fronts onto the felt. As children, my sisters and I loved these books. My Mom still has these books and now my kids enjoy looking at them.

I just tape them to my closet doors for the holidays, then throw them away afterwards

I cut them up into gift tags that I can use the next year. i use a hole punch and some ribbon. Its a good project for little ones too.