If you’re anything like me, you are lovingly inundated with holiday cards each year. In fact, for me, my very favorite time to check my mailbox is between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day when I receive cards from friends and family around the world sharing photos of their kids and stories of their adventures from the year.

I treasure each card and sit down each night to read them for a trip down memory lane and to catch up. Yes, there’s an argument that Facebook and email have rendered holiday cards useless, but I disagree. Facebook posts are fleeting, but holiday cards, like letters, create our history.

I’m one of the folks who hangs onto certain cards throughout the years. I save the photo cards showing the lives of my loves ones over the years. I save the cards with especially poignant handwritten messages. I save the truly unique cards. And I save the cards with the annual newsletters.

But what about the rest of the cards? The cards that are just signed or signed by the printer and don’t hold any special significance? It’s not that they’re not special to me, but they just don’t rise to the level of cards I save. I hate the idea of throwing these cards away or into the recycling bin.

I could gather up these cards and send them to the St. Jude’s Ranch (not affiliated with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital) Recycled Card Program, which I’m certain is a great cause and teaches kids valuable life lessons in recycling, entrepreneurship, and basic job skills.

However, I choose to recycle my cards myself by turning them into DIY holiday gift tags. This saves me money by not having to buy holiday gift tags, make my gifts prettier with a festive gift tag, reduces my carbon footprint by decreasing what I toss into landfills or send to the recycling center, and still honors the thoughtfulness of card sender by reusing their card and letting someone else see the beauty of the card.

Making holiday gift tags is simple and can involve your kids (if you trust them with scissors).

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