The pencil (or pen) dust has settled from addressing envelopes and you’ve mailed out your final stack of Christmas cards to your friends and family. Your hand is killing you, but you feel accomplished and pretty much awesome. Rightfully so. Then, you look over to find a small bunch of leftover Christmas cards. Since you’re so smart, you ordered extra just in case, and now you’re left with some outliers.
What’s a girl to do? Toss them in the trash?
No way, José.
If you find yourself with extra Christmas cards like we did this year, here are five awesome ways to put them to use!
Use as an ornament
What kind of ornaments do you have on your tree? We have a hodge podge of ball and decorative ornaments and what we call “homemade” ornaments, which pretty much means that our pictures are on them 😉 This is one of my favorite ways to use extra Christmas cards because we can celebrate with them every year! I like to date the back of each one so we can ooh and aah over them as time passes.
Use as a gift tag
Using your Christmas cards as a gift tag is a unique way to send them to loved ones (plus, you can save on postage). I like to write a note on the back for the recipient of my gift.
If your Christmas cards have a cute and decorative flip side (we got ours from Tiny Prints, and many of their cards have adorable backs), you could cut out circles in the cards, punch a hole in the top of the circle, thread some ribbon through, and use that as a gift tag as well. That would be a great way to stretch the materials and save some money on gift wrap.
Hold on to them
I absolutely love sending and receiving Christmas cards. I know some may see it as a tedious and meaningless tradition, but I think it’s such a beautiful way to document our family’s growth and change from year to year. I equally love “watching” other families change and develop over time via their Christmas cards.
One thing Dave and I have started doing is saving one Christmas card for ourselves every year. I put them in a binder so that, as the years roll on and our family grows, we can see how we evolve. I can’t wait to flip through our cards 10, 20, and 30 years from now!
Use as a place setting
If you’re planning a holiday party, consider using extra Christmas cards in your place setting. It’s an excellent and inexpensive way to add festive elements to your table! You could also send them home with your guests as a part of your party favors.
Send them to someone in need of holiday cheer
Finally, a terrific option is sending your extra Christmas cards to those who may be in need of some extra love this season. The holidays can be a trying time for those who have lost loved ones or who are not with their families during Christmas. Sending them a Christmas card with a kind note of encouragement, even if they are strangers to you, is a noble use of your cards. It’s amazing what this small act of charity can do for someone struggling during this time of year! Ask around your community to see if there are any local troops deployed who could use some love (and their families!) or if there’s a particular family going through a difficult situation. You certainly won’t regret it!
What ideas do you have for leftover Christmas cards? Ever tried any of these?
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This might sound weird, but my father and his brother developed a tradition in our family to send cards at times when one would usually send some other card, like, my uncle would buy a Mother’s Day card and then replace the word ‘Mother’ with ‘Brother’ and send it … but it only works if the receiver knows what is going on, obviously. In that case, any card could potentially get used at any time.
We also like to take all the Christmas cards we get and pray for one per day after dinner every night.
🙂
So clever! I love the ornament idea, especially. I always save a photo/card and a copy of the letter we send, too. It’s so fun to look back on them!
Love these ideas – esp the gift tag idea! We do two things with ours. I take a picture of them with my phone to use as the Caller ID photo for our friends. I also take the ones we’ve received, put a hole in them with a hole punch, and put them on a keyring to set out each year. They are really fun to look through!
Fun ideas! It’s December 23rd and I randomly decided to order some via same day pick up at CVS. I have a feeling I’ll have a bunch left over once I get a chance to send them out!