I have a confession to make.
Every year, after all is said and done for the Christmas season, I take great joy in butchering your Christmas cards.
Every last one of them.
I have this great vision of having a perfect collage of beloved faces on our refrigerator. My children will spend the year gazing upon all of your cheery holiday smiles in admiration and love, as they are reminded daily of all of the important people in their lives.
Beautiful, no?
(And then there are those photos of people they’ve never met, of whom they ask me daily, “Who is that again??” — ok, that’s really annoying, but alas – the dream lives on.)
So to see my vision come to fruition, I get out my scissors and my roll of magnets and gleefully origamize your cards.
Because within this project, I have a quirk: No words allowed.
No joy, no love, no bible verses, no names, no nice platitudinal statements, no wishes for a wonderful holiday.
The only exception is the year (but only if it’s in number form – NO words allowed!!), and only then if it is impossible to dissect it from the photos.
Some of you make this process easy for me, nicely separating your photos and your wording. One chop and your card is ready for magnetization.
But some of you don’t.
In the pleasant, euphoric place that is the inside of my head, all of the photos would magically and perfectly fit together like the puzzle pieces that make up our lives.
But after all of the shoving, maneuvering, and cramming together, I annually resign myself to the fact that you don’t make very cooperative puzzle pieces.
This year, the challenge was even greater, as the finished product of my collage had to be at least 30 inches off of the ground. Because Noah loves your cards, too – he thinks you’re delicious.
Apologies are extended for the slaying of your Christmas cards. And double apologies are given to anyone who had photos on both sides – especially to those of you that I decapitated. Merry Christmas.
That’s a great idea! I may have to try that next year. It’s much better that what I do with all the Christmas cards. Just curious what do people expect you to do with them if you aren’t crafty like you? All mine end up in the trash. Sorry! Should I shred them? Keep them? I don’t know!
I kept all of mine until about August last year, because I kept meaning to get around to making magnets out of them and never had time with a new baby. I finally admitted my failure and trashed them.
I think most people totally throw them away – no guilt necessary!!
Now thats a good idea! Argggg, another crafty thing to add to my list to feel guilty about.
This is definitely a project you should give Abbie to do. She’d be perfect for it!
I stick all of my pictures (also no words allowed) on a bulletin board until next year’s batch starts arriving. I thought about putting them together with binder rings this year though. I saw that on Pinterest, and I like the idea of flipping through the book and praying for the familes. I also have a bunch of binder rings left over from yet another Pinterest project that I did for Christmas. Lastly, a big fat kudos to our family for just sticking a print into a regular card. You didn’t have to use scissors on us at all. I exist to make your life easier! Unless…unless we didn’t make the fridge. YIKES! ;)
Yes, you get bonus points for your low maintenance photo presentation!!
Okay, admit it, Rachel–you only wrote this post so you could show off how popular you are with your friends, so that the rest of us who don’t get very many Christmas cards because we moved (two 1/2 years ago) and have still never bothered to inform any of our friends of our new (two 1/2 years ago and still unrecognized by 99% of GPS devices) address, would feel supremely lame.
So, thanks, and Merry Christmas, Mrs. Scissorhands.
(I’m going to go mummify the two cards we did get so that, one day, our grandchildren can see that we did, in fact, have {2} friends when we were younger).
I defy any typos to rear their ugly heads in a comment this snitty! I’m not even going to proofread it before posting! (Yes, I am).
Ha! Not at all. In fact, I accused my friend Lydia of that a couple of weeks ago. She very nearly has a whole wall of her Living Room covered in Christmas cards. Compared to her, I thought I was the friendlessest person in Alabama!
Drives me nutty, too…except, I don’t cut any of them apart…it just gets me every year that they won’t all fit together nicely! Who knew that a card could come in so many different sizes??
I did see a cool idea on a blog a couple years back…she took the Christmas card photos and put them in a small scrapbook or notebook and left it on the table. Then, every night at dinner throughout the year, the family would turn to the next page of their friends and pray for that family! She said it was a great way to help her kids get to “know” some of those distant friends that they might not know in person; they could see each year how the families had grown; and best of all it put them in the habit of praying for those closest to them every day. :) (I still have yet to get past the “try to get them to fit on the fridge” stage to do this, but I hope to one year!)
That’s a pretty awesome idea. Maybe next year!!
Speaking of which…
http://www.iheartnaptime.net/2012/01/what-to-do-with-christmas-cards/
I kinda want to make a collage now. But like, with decapitating people on purpose….
Ooh! And the ones you can’t decapitate, you can draw mustaches!
YES!!
Gosh, I learn something new about American (or at least Alabaman) culture with every blog. You guys get professional photos every year and make them into cards!
Our Christmas cards are bought in packs of ten and tend to have glitter or foil and pictures of snowy scenes or Biblical scenes or whatever. (There are ‘kiwi summer’ ones in New Zealand with the beach and things on them, but I don’t like those ones).
I did manage to send out quite a few this year but it’s usually an added extra at a very busy time of year.
This one’s not just Alabama. I got Christmas cards (with photos) from all over. I’m pretty sure it’s an American Epidemic.
I would second the American Epidemic assessment. And those who don’t insist on plastering everyone they have ever known with annual holiday-themed pictures of their adorable offspring are overwhelmed with guilt and shame all season long for it.
*ahem*
Fun idea – I may be stealing it!
I do the exact same thing! And I always feel kind of guilty cutting up people’s hard work. Especially the more expensive looking cards. Oh well. At least I’m not throwing it away I guess! :)
Ok! Now I feel really bad…I guess I’m the only one that throws them away. :/
No! You shouldn’t feel bad. I think you’re just the only one honestly reporting your trashing habits. :)
I totally do the same thing!! I saw a great idea on Pinterest that I also did. I took photos with my phone of all the main pictures on each card and used them to update my contacts in my phone so my friends’ pictures come up when they call!
Oh that IS a smart idea! I love it!
I somehow feel honored that I sent you one with non-together pictures so that you would have something to blog about =) But I feel it should be noted that you have Shutterfly (and TinyPrints and SeeHere, etc.) to blame for this as it is their formats we chose to use for our cards. (And to make you feel a bit more grateful for these designs, I almost chose one that had a *circle* in the middle for writing Merry Christmas from our family to yours! Much more difficult than boxes!) =) I do like the idea of snapping photos to update my iPhone contacts! Cool!
Oh man. If you’d gone with the wording in the middle…I don’t know what I would have done. It might have made me curl up in a ball in the corner of the kitchen…or you might not have made the fridge.