Sorting Greeting Cards

I opened a childhood box to start the decluttering and organizing process. I didn't really have a plan but there were a couple of piles of greeting cards inside the box so I decided to focus on this today.

Someone told me once about her friend who discards greeting cards as soon as she receives them. We were both shocked. I was surprised because at that time I kept 90% of the cards I received. Her friend felt that the purpose of a greeting card was to convey good wishes. She felt that she received the wishes and the card no longer had a purpose. She didn't even put them on a mantle for a few days and discard them later. She opened the envelope, admired the card, read the wish and recycled it.

This blew my mind but it got me thinking. Why did I keep all my cards? As the piles increased the older I got and as my family expanded, how many cards should I keep? Every year we receive twenty to thirty Christmas cards. Multiply this by 20 years and that can add up to over 500 cards. We are four in our family. We receive cards for our birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Mother's and Father's Day, Graduations, etc. The number of cards entering our house on a yearly basis was too much to keep them all. With the quantity increasing, it becomes more difficult to see and enjoy the most meaningful ones.

 It's hard to see what is special,
when you keep everything

A few years ago, I didn't go as far as the friend who discards them all but I did start to recycle cards that didn't have a meaningful message or picture. I enjoyed the cards for a few weeks but I didn't keep them all after that.

About a decade ago, I started to recognize that all the cards were mixed together and as the years went on,  I didn't know what year they were from. I started yearly folders so that cards, tickets and programs would be organized chronologically.

With cards in various places around the house, I began today by sorting through the ones in my childhood box from my bedroom. I separated them into categories:

• to and from my husband
• to and from our children
• our wedding
• travel
• correspondence (cards and letters with personal messages)
• new baby
• various occasions (wedding invitations, congratulations, favourite cards, cards from family and friends, etc.)

I had another box in my study that was full of cards so I then added them to the organized piles.

Once they were all separated, I stored them into a folder and small boxes that I gathered inside a larger box. All these cards are now in one place.

This initial effort did not involve decluttering. It looks like I had already decluttered these card piles.

I was surprised that there were only a few Christmas cards. I think I stored my Christmas cards inside my Christmas decorations boxes to look through them at Christmas time.

Although my Revive55 Memories Project just started, I am seeing the progress I had already made in the last few years of decluttering and organizing. There is a lot more to do and I am excited to delve deeper into preserving these memories.

I think one of my 10 mini projects will involve greeting cards and correspondence. Although I didn't declutter any today, I'm sure that once all the cards are together and I focus more on them, it will be easier to only keep the special ones. When I have a plan for what I want to do with the most meaningful ones and save the messages, keeping all these actual cards will no longer be necessary.

I'm happy that the jumbled mess of cards are separated and organized. As I continue the decluttering and organizing of other boxes and folders, I will separate the cards and organize them with these so that in the end they will all be in the one place.

I can then decide what I will want to do with them.