Step One: Read the card one last time while thinking nice thoughts about the person who wrote it.
Step Two: Throw it in the trash can. If the person who wrote it will be coming over soon, place another piece of trash over it so they don’t see that you threw away their card. (School papers work well for this.)
Now, lest you think I’m completely heartless . . . let me assure you that I don’t do this with cards from my kids or Hubby. I put those where all mothers do.
In my underwear drawer, of course.
Wait. Is that just me?
And let me also assure you that I’m only able to do this from experience. Decluttering experience.
My decluttering experience allows me to visualize what my future will be if I don’t throw them away now.
I see myself looking around for a clear, flat surface to display the birthday cards.
I see myself (three months later), decluttering that surface. I see myself holding the cards, standing in one spot for 90+ seconds staring into space, wondering what in the world I’m going to do with them now.
I see myself shoving the cards into a pile of miscellaneous stuff.
I see myself (two weeks later) answering the phone.
I see panic in my eyes. Someone is on her way over. I’m not sure who it is . . . but my lip-reading skills tell me it’s something that ends in “. . . in-law.”
I see myself grabbing a random box and shoving the pile (with the birthday cards now in the middle of the stack) inside. I see myself depositing that box in the master bedroom.
I see myself (six months later) crying over my messy-again master bedroom, and taking that box to the garage. I grab a Sharpie and label it: “TO BE FILED, 2013″
I see a montage of scenes of our family climbing in and out of our current Suburban, our next Suburban, and the one after that. The kids are getting older and eventually they are the drivers.
I see myself (forty years later) on my scooter, old and gray (but totally unwrinkled and skinny), digging around for something-or-other in the garage, but never bothering to open the box from 2013.
I see my kids. And their kids. All dressed in black. They open the box and wonder why in the world their crazy mother/grandmother kept every birthday card she ever received.
So there you go.
It feels good to use my skills in the Art of Imagination for good.
Since my birthday was yesterday…it was very easy to place myself in that scene… Eeeek! Off to throw away card right now
My bday is today – what a timely post! I will say a little prayer for each person who gave me a card – just before I deposit them in the trash
Best post ever.
Cards are so hard to toss! I had a similar conversation with myself last time I moved.
I am scrapbooking cards from my wedding. Or I was for about a month. Now it’s an unfinished project on top of a shelf.
Just tossed all but 1 of my yesterday birthday cards. Now I should head down the the basement and dig out OLD birthday cards that didn’t get tossed as each year went by. Oops! But starting fresh TODAY! Baby steps!
I so do this, except I have to make sure the school papers are upside down lest the 5yo freak out…
So funny that I’m not the only one who puts birthday cards in their underwear drawer!! LOL!!
Everything I own that doesn’t have a home ends up in my underwear drawer!
I take a digital picture of the ‘important’ cards, and can revisit on the computer anytime I want. Then I trash the paper. LOVE this post!
I actually had this problem with all my kids cards. I felt sooo guilty throwing them away, and personally for me it’s kind of nice that I still have a few of the cards that my mom saved when I was a kid. Anyway, I pinterested around and saw an idea for using a two hole punch and binder rings to make little books of birthday cards. My 2.5 yr LOVES looking through all her cards. It’s a fairly quick and painless project (especially if you order the punch and rings on amazon) and it solves the problem and makes a nice keepsake. Hope this helps someone who can’t get out the guilt feelings
I love to scrapbook and journal, and I use old cards by re-fashioning them into embellishments for those things. I remember going through my mother-in-law’s things after she passed away, and there were TWO HUGE GARBAGE BAGS full of cards when we were done. I have to say that it was actually fun to look at the old cards, remembering relatives that had passed away years before. Sorting the cards wasn’t as difficult as sorting the bras. Dear old mom kept every single bra she’d ever owned, I think. She was raised during the depression, and they were taught to save everything. We threw out a large garbage bag stuffed full of bras.
Love it. i have become a card thrower-transformed from a keep every scrap of notepaper ever handed you. it’s a big step
also trying to teach my children the value of not keeping every scrap of paper…. some get it, others are more like me. so, when i see the same card 2-3 days in a row… somewhere other than it’s designated card keeping spot, it gets thrown away-and completely covered with something else 
lest the owner recognize the corner and retrieve it . haha
My recent birthday cards are still sitting around, along with the Christmas cards! Yikes! I do imagine my kids having to throw stuff out, so I’m working on this!
I keep cards from hubby and kids and if they contain a note of some kind. My mom always writes a little something so I keep those. Everything else goes in the circular file.
On my 40th birthday, my mother gave me the same home made “Ha Ha You’re So Old” card I had given her when I was 12.
That . . . is hilarious! If my daughter gives me a card like that, I’ll save it for sure!
So many January babies. Happy Birthday everyone! Mine was the 15th, I too tossed them but laid them out and took a picture first. That method works for me (mentally) on several things, it gives me some peace of mind to let more stuff go. My little zip drive thingy takes up alot less space.
Funniest thing I’ve read today!
I must share this, however,… I am a card keeper.
I’ll explain-
I keep Christmas Cards in a Cute Merry Christmas box…but only until the next year. We have a family Holiday Journal so when the book comes out at Thanksgiving 2013…(it’s kept in the same box) I go through 2012 Christmas cards right then and there–if anyone sent us a card and after 1 year…they are no longer with us. Their card goes in the book. I have my Mom’s last Christmas card, My FIL last Christmas Card.
it’s not fool proof– there are lots of variables as to what the last card really is. But if it’s in the box–and your dead. Your card goes in the Family Holiday Journal.
Creepy, I know.
but true.
(the up side? …Yes…there is an upside.) I clean out the cards 1 time a year ?!
Pat
I put the cards on the mantel and where they sit until the next card receiving event when I trash all the ones that don’t have a special message.
I got a paper punch in the shape of a big gift tag, so I use that to punch out pictures from the cards and put them in the wrapping supplies.
Cards with photos go on the fridge until we can’t see it anymore.
Thank you! for the permission to throw them out.
Your little imaginative scenario is really not so far fetched. I’m not in a scooter yet, but I do have bins and piles in my bedroom that I’ve been avoiding.
You are helping me face the tough decluttering jobs.
And yes, isn’t that where all us good moms hideaway those precious keepsakes?
that is great…love it…I do the same thing.