Bart loves having Christmas decorations up, especially a Christmas tree, and if it were up to him, I’m pretty sure it’d stay up until Easter.
I love Christmas decorations too, but as soon as a new year rolls in, I’m ready to clean up Christmas and move into a new year with a clean slate.
But it’s definitely the hardest to just toss the Christmas cards that arrived in your mailbox over the holiday season.
If you want to treasure them a bit longer (or a lot longer!) here are some simple ideas for what to do with old Christmas cards:
What to do with old Christmas cards
- Make a Valentine’s Day Banner. This is my favorite way to use old Christmas Cards. I make a neat stack of them and tuck them away until early February and then the girls and I cut out the photos in the shapes of hearts and string them into a banner of people we love. And then, post Valentine’s Day, I recycle them without any guilt. Full directions here!
- Use them as phone images. Someone suggested this to me a few years ago and I thought it was so fun – snap a photo of the Christmas card image and set it as the image for that person in your phone contacts, so you can see that happy photo every time you text or call them!
- Clip them all together for a festive flip book. My friend Miranda does this and now has ten years worth of little flip books featuring their friends and family from all over the country. And what fun to watch the people you love grow up before your eyes.
- Use them as gift tags. I love wrapping gifts and I always think a pretty tag is the cherry on top. You might not want to use the photo of someone, but you can definitely the message part (a pretty cursive “Merry Christmas!” or “Jingle All the Way” or a part with a pretty pattern. Just trim it to the size you want, punch a little hole in the top and voila – a whole stack of high-quality, thick tags ready for next Christmas.
- Make magnets with them. I did a tutorial a few years ago for how to make your own Instagram magnets and you can do the same thing with Christmas cards. Just get a magnetic sheet, stick on your trimmed Christmas cards and you have your favorite faces ready to keep your fridge or magnet board company all year long!
I’d love to hear what you do with your old Christmas cards once the holidays are over!
Paige Cassandra Flamm says
These are all cute ideas! Your Valentine’s Banner is still my favorite idea!
Madison Wetherill says
Now I’m torn! I was saving our cards to make a valentine’s day banner, but now I’m torn on making the booklet from them. Great ideas!
Linnae Harper says
Several years ago I made an address book out of a photo album. So I do a 3×5 card with the info on it in the top slot, then underneath, slip in the latest Christmas card. Sometimes I have to trim them down to fit. It has been great for my kiddos to remember what far-flung family members look like and so fun for me to see the pictures whenever I’m flipping through the book for an address. Similar to the phone picture, but the old-school version! At the end of each year I throw away the old ones as I’m replacing them.