How best to Display Christmas Cards
Everyone who receives a lot of Christmas cards wants todisplaythem to their best advantage so visitors can admire the colorful designs and, if they wish, read the verses. The display of Christmas cards generally follows one of two themes: the tried-and-true method and the innovative approach.
Tried-and-true:
With ample kitchen counter space or a large temporarily-unused table, Christmas cards display well by standing them upright, slightly opened. Visitors can admire the cards from a distance or pick them up and read the verses as well as the comments of the senders.
Another method that works well involves a refrigerator or other metal surface and several magnets. Open the cards and magnetize them to the metal surface by their back flaps. This lets the cards open easily. Lacking enough magnets, Scotch taping the cards to the refrigerator also works, but may leave a sticky residue on the metal; pre-test on a small area.
Hung with strings looped over its branches, Christmas cards make colorful Christmas tree decorations. Carefully punch a small hole in the back flap of a card with an ice pick, draw a short length of string through the hole and tie the string into a loop. Tree lights reflect especially colorfully from cards having glitter as part of the design.
Open the cards and drape them over colored ribbons strung from wall to wall, either out of traffic patterns or a few inches above head height. Reading the cards may prove difficult, but the cards and ribbons will add to the colorful Christmas time decor.
Innovative:
Suspend the cards from strings scotch-taped to doorway arches, with sprigs of mistletoe interspersed among them. Anyone who pauses to admire the Christmas cards risks getting kissed.
Affix the cards by their backs to the surface of a lazy Susan or carousel so people can spin the wheel and view different cards.
Scotch tape the cards to sheets of large fairly stiff colored poster paper, then place the decorated sheets on an easel. This makes it easy to rotate the sheets by moving the one at the rear forward periodically.
Place Christmas cards near table settings at holiday gatherings and have diners read the imprinted messages. This works especially well with humorous verses.
No room or facilities to display as suggested above? Consider scanning them onto a computer for viewing. Saved in the JPEG format, the images can be copied onto a Photo Frame where they will display as a slide show. Scanning the Christmas cards onto a computer provides a neat way to keep the best of them for as long as desired.
