Birthday Cards

I still have a box of my son’s drawings and paintings when a child, which I will burn before long. I couldn’t bear to throw them out when we downsized but the time has come.

I hand-make cards with all my original artwork and my mother-in-law has just given me a bag back of about 40 of them! 😱 Birhdays and Christmas. She says there are more!!

When we first got married (over 40 years ago) I used to keep scrapbooks and would keep birthday cards in it. I now have a big memory box where I keep special cards, it’s interesting to look back at them years later and see how dated they look.

Yes I do. I have a ‘treasure box’. Special cards and letters. Drawings from the children and grandchildren . In fact anything I like which has a special meaning .

I often make them into notebook covers or even just use a few for shopping lists. At least that way they get another outing.

I have recently recycled over 40 years of birthday, wedding and birth congratulations cards (strangely I have never kept Christmas cards). I looked at them all, thought about the senders and photographed any with messages I wanted to keep. Like GSM and others I don't want my daughter to have to do it after my husband and I have died.

I keep some and the rest I give to the grandchildren to cut up and make a collage with.They love cutting and sticking with them!! Handmade ones are always special to keep. My daughter has cross stitched some beautiful ones. On going through my mums things when clearing her house I found my 1st birthday cards. They were beautiful and so different to what we receive now. I will treasure those ones.

Oh dear! I'm afraid I'm far too sentimental to chuck cards in the bin. I've loads of cards in boxes kept at back of cupboard. I do have a clear out sometimes and cut up some to use as scrap paper but generally most of them go back in the boxes. I will toss them eventually I hope

I have kept the last few that DH sent me, and all the ones GS has sent me since he could write in them himself.

Ok, you've all given me food for thought. I am quite sentimental and looking at all my cards which I have kept throughout the years brings for me lots of memories to that particular time. I just thought it was now time for me to start getting rid. I may just keep my special ones i.e. family on this occasion and re-cycle the others. Thanks folks.

Thats how I feel about my stuff.
Only worth anything to me, but it can all be tipped out into a skip.
The end.

Mmm. I have kept most of mine in a drawer. It’s not as if my children will have to wade through acres of stuff when OH and I go under that proverbial bus! Photographs, journals etc., are kept neatly in attractive boxes.

I’m in the same frame of mind as GSM - don’t want the DDs opening the bench and saying ‘WTF has Mum kept these for!’

I’ve kept every birthday and some special Christmas cards since we moved here - 30+ years and thousands of cards! The monks bench was rammed full, so I’ve had a clear out and saved a few cards, mainly from DGSs, the rest went in the recycle bin.

It is an arduous task if you are an only child, as I was and my son is. Having gone through it - and my parents were not hoarders by any means - I wouldn’t wish it on my son. It’s certainly not removing all trace of myself, it’s being tidy and not having loads of stuff to be cleared out when someone is grieving. You may not give a … but I do.

I struggle dumping them.. But do eventually. However I kept the last one my mum sent me before she past away and the last Christmas card she sent us I have put it out for the past 3 years.

I have a couple I've kept, somewhere.
The rest are taken down and thrown as soon as is polite.

I do what I feel like doing with my stuff in my home.

It is a sad and imo dreary state of affairs that has has led to people feeling compelled to remove all traces of themselves from this life while alive and to dwell on what will happen to small stuff like this and how the living will feel about the arduous task of looking at it all when they are are dead 😵

I am all for keeping stuff tidy and hygienic and safe for me and others but beyond that I don’t give a….

I tuck them away in a drawer and then when tidying the drawer months or years later I re-read then recycle them.

I keep the handmade ones from my grandchildren.

I do keep special birthday cards, to me they are more precious than presents.

Not so much for special numbers, but special occasions and special messages inside.
I have recently unearthed lots of memorabilia saved by my late mother-in-law, which included a few cards, and lots of other ‘ post’, a priceless record of social history going back four generations.

I’ve never kept any, birthdays, births, weddings, none at all, display for about a week, then the green bin.

Yes I do.
I also keep some ordinary ones if they are especially nice for on e reason or another.

Virtually all the sentimental stuff[apart from photos] is all in one drawer of a large chest of drawers.
So I dont think that is a huge anount to have saved over the years.

Logically, it makes no sense. It’s just a number that has a zero or a five on the end - like picking tickets from a tombola.

We don’t make a big deal out of 10 or 15 or 20 … or 30 or 45. I’m assuming you are talking about 60, 65, 70 and so on. Put bluntly, it’s commemorating still being alive. Nice gestures from family and friends but just more clutter for someone to have to deal with when we die.