Monday, December 26, 2011

Delights of December Day 26 ~ Some ideas for using Christmas cards



Each year I like to display the cards we receive in our front hallway as they arrive. Once I've sent a card in return, I roll up masking tape and tape the cards around the frame of the doorway to the living room. I also tape them to the adjacent wall of the hallway. They pretty much take up the space available and make a very festive display. I keep them up until a couple of weeks after Christmas.
A festive doorway

When the cards come down, they go into a pretty wooden basket. They will reside there until the next year's cards take their place. We like to pull out a card a day and pray for the family or person who sent the card. Ideally, we keep rotating through them. We don't always stick with this, but every year we aim at it!

I should hasten to add that this year, for the first time in a very long time, the card display didn't happen.  The cards never got taped up.  I was so consumed with some handcrafted gifts I was making that I just didn't find time.  I sort of liked the less cluttered look, just for a change, but I'm sure next year I will be back to taping them up.  But for this year, the cards will be going directly into the prayer basket.

So what do we do with the previous year's cards when the present year's cards replace them? Well, we don't throw them all away! Some are so beautiful that I save them to display at future Christmases. For the others, I have several projects for which I like to use old Christmas cards -- gift tags, little boxes, and even what we call in our family a "kissing ball". In the next few days, I'll be sharing instructions for these projects, so stay tuned!

2 comments:

  1. We used to do the very thing you all do...put the cards in a basket and pray for a family at our Sunday dinners. Now that the kids are grown and gone, we no longer do that. I save all the Photo cards in a scrapbook. I enjoy seeing how the families change over the years! My cards are still stapled to ribbon in the kitchen and dining room so I need to get them down and put them away until I can get them in my scrap book. Like you, I have been so busy that I have neglected last yrs photo cards so now on a cold winter day, I plan to put them all in my scrap book. I am trying to take down a few decorations every day so I will not be overwhelmed! The tree and all the decorations will be put away by New Years Day!

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  2. You are so organized, Arlene! It's so cold and snowy up here for so long that I tend to leave my "winter" things up for quite awhile just to add some sparkle and cheer to the surroundings.

    That's neat that your family used to do the very same thing with your cards as far as praying for those who sent them. I hope we can follow through with that this year.

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