Trash or Treasure?

Do you keep old birthday and holiday cards and letters you’ve received in the past, hang onto them as memorabilia? Or do you throw them away once you’ve read them and maybe answered with a card or letter of your own? I’ve always kept many of mine that I have received through the years, especially ones that make me smile or press my happy button. In fact, I put them in big baskets that I call my happy baskets. It used to be one basket, but that one overran itself some time ago. Some cards I’ve thought about framing because they are so beautiful, but I’ve never followed through, yet. The short, or sometimes long, messages inside keep me from sending them to the trash. I have a few that are over forty years old. I wish I had ones I received growing up, but back then I didn’t realize that they might be important to me later on.

And I keep the ones that mark special dates like wedding, birth and graduation announcements. Every once in a while I enjoy going back through them, reading and remembering. Of course, there are some funny audio birthday cards. I remember one to my husband on Father’s Day of a man on a mower with actual sounds of the mower when you opened it up, and another of a man snoring...you can guess what that sounds like. Sadly, some of those have lost their audio and stay mute when I open them. I’m not sure why that is. That makes me smile, too. Could there be a tiny little battery inside?

I like to keep all those from each person or family together, oldest to newest if I can, and as I look through them, I can see a record of the past unfolding. As I read, I remember things to go along with their written words, and memories of other times come back to me like a movie reel rolling. What are even dearer to me are the signatures of those who have passed on, a little piece of immortality.

I even keep those holiday cards with newsletters from family and friends, mainly because they always include photos and record a history of the writer’s past year’s escapades, although they usually only tell the good stuff. I heard once they were called brag letters so I could never bring myself to write one. I could never think of anything to brag about anyway. Once I thought of making something up, but I quickly came to my senses when I realized how easily my lies would be found out. I never was good at poker, and my children couldn’t keep a secret if their lives depended on it. But the newsletters are still keepers.

I like the real letters best, though, especially ones from my relatives when they would write with particular news. Some aren’t dated, and I play a game with myself trying to pick the year before I look at the dated stamp on the envelope. Sometimes I’m surprised by how far off I am. And letters from friends are so handy when you need to remember what someone’s son or daughter does for a living. I can never remember that stuff.

Now, it’s an unusual day for me to get a letter or card through the snail mail, and I miss that. Personal mail makes me feel special, to know that someone took time from their day to pick out a card or write a letter, find a stamp, address an envelope and put that into a mailbox. And postcards, now I really feel special if someone sends me a postcard. That means they interrupted their fun to do all that addressing and stamp-finding. Postcards I never throw away. There’s something about having a physical thing in hand. It means so much more to me than an electronic message, or even a phone call.