Our Greeting Card Tradition

Mary Jane and I were married for almost 62 years. During the early years of our marriage, on special days like our birthdays, Valentine’s Day, and anniversaries, we would each shop for and buy greeting cards to give to each other appropriate for the occasion. Mary Jane would save the cards we gave each other in a filing cabinet we had (picture on right) so that after 25 and more years of marriage we had accumulated quite a large collection of cards. She was always careful about how we/she spent our money, so at some point she suggested that, instead of buying more cards to give each other, that we start re-using the cards we had saved over again.

So, we made a plan: each year for Valentine’s Day, for example, instead of shopping for a new Valentine card, we each would get out of our existing collection of cards several cards from previous years and place them around our house on the given day. Then we would each be challenged to find our cards for the day. She also suggested that we should write in the card the date (year) that each card was used.

Here is an example of a Valentine I used several times for her. Note the list of years in the lower right-hand corner of the card indicating the years that I put the card out for her to find. Note also my special ’signature’ to her: O.L.H. - One Loving Husband. The first time she got a card signed with O.L.H. she thought it meant ’Old Lover Head’. That became one of our special private jokes between the two of us: I was Old Lover Head!

So, our tradition became, on special occasions like birthdays and Valentine’s Day, putting out around the house 4-6 cards for each one of us to locate for the day. Then we’d ask, "Did you find your cards for today?" "Well, I’ve found four so far." "I put out six, so you still have two more to find."

Here are some other examples of the cards we exchanged this way.

Is that a great way to have some fun and save some money, too? It became a special something we looked forward to on our special days.

MJ passed away on April 19, 2021, so her birthday on March 27, 2021 was the last time we did it.

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