To throw away cards and letters received over the years

[Finemjen]

having a sort out and came across boxes and boxes of birthday cards, Xmas cards, celebration cards for life milestones, letters received from family and friends over the years. I’ve loved looking through some of them and reading the messages (nostalgia from a pre-email /text life!) but considering throwing them away as I need the space and not sure when I’d next look at them, if at all and they’re just collecting dust. Anyone else been in this situation - I am sentimental and do like a memento but would it be unreasonable to throw them away? Maybe keep a few, but throw the rest? If anyone has kept their cards is there a way to keep them that’s better than stuffed in a box (googled but nothing came up!)

I used to work in dementia care and things like this meant a lot to some of my residents. One of the ladies was able to recognise me for a long time and would say, "There's my little girl," pat her bed, and get me to read to her old letters to her. Some of them she had received in childhood from people who must have died decades ago. But their words still meant a lot to her and I believe they may have helped keep her brain matter functioning for longer.

Thank you for this OP. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I share your dilemma, so following with interest!

If you haven't looked at them in years, you don't need them. We all save too much stuff because we're sentimental over it and "stuff" builds up and up. Don't attach too much significance to "things". The memories will still be there in your head, and when you're too old to remember, the memories won't mean anything anyway, even if confronted with a physical card/letter.

Having said that, do keep a memento box for the most precious items, and just keep those. Not everything, just a few irreplaceable items. Examples: a couple of wedding photos, very first letter from husband-to-be-in-the-future, last letter from mother before she died or that type of thing. The rest can safely be recycled.

I say this as someone who used to keep EVERYTHING and who eventually managed to declutter and get my life memories (not far off 70 years) into a couple of small, manageable boxes. I feel much better for it and my memories haven't been erased by it either.

Keep letters but chuck cards.

I keep a sample of the nicest cards.
Over a lifetime we accrue too much and sgnificance fades, so it is worth pruning out duplicates and what has lost meaning. Keep what feels positive.

My teenage letters are in the loft. I fizzled on letters in the first year at uni when I had access to a 24hr computer room and was able to send emails freely. They probably won't make much sense to me now, but there's a managable volume of them to keep. They are a bit of (low quality) social history, and I'll be at the younger end of people who wrote letters for pleasure before emails and social media took over that function.

I'm redecorating a room and on clearing it out came across a folder of birthday cards that my Dad kept from my first birthday. I am 64 years old. He was very sentimental but I am not. No idea why I had them in the first place, but straight in the bin.

My mam was a bit of a hoarder it used to annoy me but after she died it was lovely to see the things she'd kept, my first birthday card, drawings, my first school uniform jumper, receipts from lunches out together. I do really value these things now ❤️

I have battled with my Mum who keeps every card (she's a hoarder) . If I saw "Oh you can recycle that " (note : not "throw that out " ) she's say ^Oh but Jessie/Brian/Donny sent this"

Some are precious but Jessie won't care if you throw out a card from 15 years ago.

My Mum had a (very lovely ) card the paperboy sent her when my DSis was born in 1963 . It moved house twice in her box of cards .

Think of your family having to plough through them/

Now , onto photographs .....

You're going to get two opposing viewpoints on this.
I recently chucked a big box full of them. Have not given it a further thought until this thread today. (We have plenty of photos of card-filled mantlepieces.)
But we have very limited loft storage now, so I would have had to find a home for them somewhere in one of our rooms.

I put all the new baby cards in a scrap book. My wedding cards are in a nice box. I culled all my birthday cards except for ones from really special people. My university letters are in a ring binder. Everything else went. I think if you are sentimental (like me) you will regret getting rid of everything so compromise and slim the collection down. You will find in a year or two you can slim it down again and so on.

I have kept a few special cards etc. But the rest I threw away. I'll never go through them again so no point keeping them.

My mum kept all of my birth announcement cards and when she died I went through them. It was heart rending, reading the cards with all of that hope for the future, after her life had ended. And I wouldn't want to inflict that on my own DC.

I even chucked out a box of NewBaby cards, after reading them, DC don’t want them, think Death Cleaning when it comes to cards and letters. Someover the years I have felt a twinge of regret over then forgotten.

I keep birthday and christmas cards from certain people until I get the next card. If they pass away in the meantime I have the last card they sent me.

I'd keep the letters and throw out the cards.

I now wish I'd kept the letters received from the Italian pen friend I had when I was a teenager. We've been back in touch via Facebook and now WhatsApp for 16 years and it would be funny for us to read those letters again.

Every Christmas I put up Christmas cards from my Mum , Granny and and special GrandAunt.they have all died now, it makes me feel close to them and it’s sad when cards no longer arrive from those you love who are gone. I’m an only child and though I have a family of my own I have no extended family left. I unwrap those cards which are stored with my Christmas decorations so carefully every year and put them on
my mantelpiece.
They are prized and I love them very much and it’s like getting a hug from my Mum.

I never keep anything like this. But I’m aware of completely void of sentimentality and am in a minority. My house is untidy enough with 3 adults and 2 teenagers without additional layers of clutter.

I used to keep lots of things.

Then, my dad died and I had to go through his stuff. He had boxes and boxes, a loft full of cards, letters, all my old school books. They meant nothing to me, they all went into the skip.

That’s when I threw away all my stuff too. When I’m gone, no one will care and it would been dumped as well.

get a card, read it, think “oh, that’s thoughtful” then chuck it. I used to keep so much stuff that never saw the light of day again, and for what? For someone to take to the tip when I’m dead?

We recently downsized from a 3bed to a small 2bed park home. I had to cull everything. Dd had all her uni work and craft things she'd made, nice things not pasta pictures. I also had scrap books full of their school awards and pictures.
Dd scanned all her stuff and kept a few things. Eldest ds kept everything he's a bit of a hoarder and youngest ds chucked most of it and kept a few bits.
I have to say i haven't missed any of it. I didn't have letters but hundreds of every card imaginable. Sorry waffled on a bit there.

@Mydogisatool exactly! which is the point of Swedish DeathCleaning
as tht is exactly what happens, with ruthless uncaring children for whom
your letters mean nothing or indeed can be incendiary.
Who remembers the scene in Bridges of Madison County when Francesca
has died and her children, clearing out, discover her secret and view this
as a betrayal, not a sacrifice.

i’m not ruthless or uncaring for not giving a shit about leaving cards from a job he had 20 years before I was born, or every birthday card he ever got. You can’t care about everything.

I wouldn’t think my own children were ruthless or uncaring for not giving a shit about some certificates I got in secondary school.

Life is for living now. Not for hoarding things from the past or trying to make people care about the same things you did.

Cards stay on the mantle for about a week then go in recycling. Letters from special people go in a small box of memories.

I find it really hard to throw stuff. I have a beautiful little card that was given to my Mum by her boss and workmates when she got married, and had to leave her job (as was the way then!). It incorporated a specially written poem referring to 'Our dear little D'. I also have loads of letters send during WW2 between my parents - can't possibly read them, but can't throw them either. DD knows she has a job to do - she said the other day that when I pop my clogs, she'll have both mine and my mother's stuff to sort out!

I will get round to it - but hope/expect to be here for a while yet!

exactly!

can you tell more about what death cleaning is?