What to do with all those Christmas Cards

Every year, the hardest part of getting over Christmas is taking down all the beautiful cards from all our friends and family near and far that sent their wishes, updates, pretty faces, and holiday cheer...

A snap-shot of our cards taken before we left for the holidays... and came back to another stack of 20 or so... 

we were really feeling the love this year!

...just to toss them in the recycle bin come January 1? I can never do it!  An old colleague of mine used to collect cards and give them to a friend of a program who recycled them... Jesse's mom always used to send hers too. This year I decided to find a place of my own to send them {and Jesse's mom too}. With a simple google search you'll find lots of ideas... use them for gift tags, accents for bags, scrapbooking, or tree ornaments, but my favorite option was to donate them to The St. Jude's Ranch for Children.

A little history on the program from their website...

"More than thirty years ago, wishing to show our donors appreciation for making St. Jude’s Ranch for Children possible, the idea was conceived to turn the previous year’s Christmas cards into “new” cards for the coming season. The recipients were so delighted when they received the unique “thank you,” that they requested to purchase the special cards. The program soon expanded to include all occasion greeting cards…as well as Thank You cards, Easter cards, Birthday cards and Just Because cards.

Support for the Recycled Card Program was so overwhelming that people from all over the world began donating to our program by sending in their used cards. The Program became so successful that soon we were receiving more than 1 million cards.

So, today we packed up a couple dozen cards from the office and over 100 of our own... along with a few tossed in from co-workers and send a huge package to the ranch.  If you're looking to put your family and friends beautiful cards to good use, send yours as well. 

Mail donations to:

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children

Recycled Card Program

100 St. Jude’s Street

Boulder City, NV 89005