A few years back I heard someone talk about using Christmas cards to pray for their friends. I thought it was a great idea but never really got my post-Christmas self in gear to make it happen.  And our boys were never really both at the developmental point at the same time for it to be entirely practical. (I can’t for the life of me remember who told me about this so feel free to claim the idea in the comments and I’ll give you credit! I feel like maybe it was related to MOPS at Vienna Presbyterian years ago?!)

SO, before you toss that Christmas card stack into the trash or a box think about keeping them and using them for a fun family project.

As we received cards from friends this year I took a tip from one of my favorite blogs… A Barefoot Day and hung our cards to enjoy for the season. Simple…twine and clothes pins.  Nothing fru fru!

So far since Christmas we have just kept our cards hanging on the twine that we hung on our front window.  Most evenings after dinner we let one of the boys pick a card and we talk about and pray for those friends.

So far it is serving a few purposes:

1. Taking time to pray for friends! For their jobs, safety, health, joy…

2. (one I hadn’t anticipated) To help our boys get to know family and friends that we may not see so often. It isn’t uncommon for the boys to not know everyone in the picture so it’s a fun way to introduce them (or refresh their memories) to our friends/extended family and their children.

3. Teaching the boys to pray…what it means to “talk to God” and pray for others. It has been such a neat way to teach the boys more about prayer and having others in mind when we pray. I won’t lie, there have been some silly prayers. But they are learning. We are all learning.  I don’t know about you but I want to be mindful of others needs and I often get a bit stuck in a rut and distracted by our own family needs. Praying for others helps get our attention off ourselves. And the visual reminders of the cards is helpful!

Sometimes we are aware of what friends are going through currently and can pray specifically, other times we just pray for them to be healthy, happy, etc. And I am attempting to send people a short message after the boys pick their card just to let them know that we care about them and spent some time in prayer for their family. That part is harder for me to remember to follow up on!

I am getting a little antsy to get things completely back in order around here and as much as I love seeing the cheerful cards, I am ready to take them down. So I took them all off the twine and punched a hole in them. I tied them together with a snippet of the twine (you could use ribbon, a ring, slip them into an old album, whatever you have). There are lots of ideas on pintrest for making them into a book to keep as a memento, which is fun too.  But for now, I just want to keep them together so we can continue our family project and not have them scattered.

So rescue the stack of cards before the recycling bin and join us as we start this New Year!