6 Ways to Display Christmas Cards (Without Taping Them to a Door)

For three years straight I taped our Christmas cards to the door frame in our hallway. And for three years straight they curled at the corners, slid sideways, and ended up in a sad little pile on the floor by about December 20th! Then one year the tape came off and took a strip of paint with it, and I had to go explain that to my husband. (He was very nice about it. I was not nice about it.)

So I finally stopped winging it! I spent way too long looking for card displays that didn’t look like a corkboard in a break room, and honestly most of what I found was either $50 or held four cards. Four! But there are good options out there, and a few of them cost almost nothing. I’ve put rough costs next to each one, because “just get a card holder” is not helpful advice when they range from six dollars to sixty!

Here are the six ways I’ve actually used in my own house.

1. The ribbon and clothespin ladder — about $12

This is the one I come back to every single year! You hang a length of ribbon vertically (or two or three side by side, which is where the “ladder” look comes from), and clip cards onto it with mini wooden clothespins.

The clothespins are the whole trick! I use 1 inch mini wooden clothespins — a hundred of them costs less than a fancy coffee and you will still be using the same bag in four years! Do not buy the full-size laundry ones. I did that the first year and they’re so heavy they drag the ribbon out of line and the whole thing hangs crooked. (It bothered me for a solid month.)

For the ribbon, I like a 2 1/2 inch wired ribbon because the wire keeps the edges from rolling in on themselves. Any Christmas ribbon works though, and this is a great use for the leftover half-roll from your tree that isn’t quite enough for anything else. If you need to buy some, I have a whole post on where to find the best ribbon and which stores are worth the trip.

Hang the top of each ribbon on one hook, let it fall, and clip cards down the length as they come in. It fills in over the month, which I love — by Christmas week the wall actually looks like something!

2. Twine on damage-free wire hooks — about $20 for the whole setup

If you rent, or if you’re like me and simply do not want to put a nail in the wall for something that comes down in four weeks, this is your version.

I use the Command variety pack for this. It has small wire hooks in it, which are perfect because the hook part gives your ribbon or twine somewhere to sit instead of sliding off a flat adhesive strip. It also has picture-hanging strips and utility hooks, so whatever’s left over gets used somewhere else in the house. Nothing about a card line is heavy — cards weigh basically nothing — so the small hooks are plenty.

If you’d rather do jute twine than ribbon for a more natural look, there are clothespin sets that come with the twine included, which saves you a second purchase. Two hundred clothespins and eleven feet of twine in one box. That’s your card display and every gift tag you’ll tie for the next three Christmases.

One tip that cost me an evening: press the hooks on and then leave them alone for a full hour before you hang anything. I got impatient, hung the line immediately, and came back to find the whole thing on the floor with every card underneath it!

3. A hanging card display with clips — around $20 to $25

If the DIY versions sound like more decision-making than you have energy for this month, buy the thing. There are hanging card displays with clips already attached — this style has 24 clips on it, which is more than enough unless you have a very large family or a very active card-sending group of friends.

The reason I like this one over the fancier metal card trees: it hangs flat against a wall or a door and it holds a lot. A lot of the decorative card holders I looked at were beautiful and held maybe eight cards. Eight! I get more than eight cards from my husband’s side alone.

If you want the metal version, they exist too — there’s a wire loop style that mounts on the wall and a wreath-shaped one with wire loops around the outside — but I couldn’t find a listing I trusted enough to link, so go browse those yourself and read the reviews for how many cards they actually hold.

4. Cards standing up in a dough bowl on the entry table — about $25 to $35

This is my favorite for people who don’t want anything on their walls at all!

Get a long wooden dough bowl, put it on your entry table or console, and stand the cards up in it leaning against each other like a file. Guests pick them up and read them, which nobody does with a card taped to a door frame nine feet away. It also gives you a spot for the cards that arrive with photos, because those genuinely deserve to be looked at.

I use a 17 inch hand-carved dough bowl — the long narrow shape is exactly right for cards, and the best part is that it’s not a Christmas item. It sits on my table year round with keys and sunglasses in it, and in December it becomes a card holder. If your entry table is on the shorter side there’s a 17.2 inch version that’s a bit wider which also works, and holds a few more.

Tuck a little greenery down one end and it stops looking like a bowl of mail. That’s the whole difference, I promise!

5. Tied to the stair railing — free

If you have stairs, y’all, you already own a card display and you don’t have to buy one single thing!

Cut short pieces of ribbon, tie one around each baluster, and slip the card under the ribbon. Or run one long ribbon down the outside of the railing and clothespin the cards to it, same as the ladder. It decorates a part of the house that usually gets ignored in December, which is a two-for-one I’m always going to take! I do the same thing with stockings when there’s no mantle — I wrote about six ways to hang stockings if you’re in that boat too.

6. The one that survives a toddler — one high ribbon line, about $6

Okay. Here’s the honest section.

My daughter was two the year I got clever about card displays, and I learned very quickly that a bowl of cards on a low table is not a display, it’s a basket of toys! Same with a ribbon ladder at eye level. She could reach the bottom two feet of it and she absolutely did, every single day, and I re-clipped those cards more times than I want to admit!

What actually worked was one single ribbon line hung high — above a doorway, or across the top of a mirror in the entry. One line, up out of reach, cards clipped along it. It’s less dramatic than three ribbons down a wall, but it stays exactly where you put it and you’re not fixing it every afternoon!

A few things I’d pass along if you’re in the toddler years too: skip anything freestanding, because it will get knocked over. Skip anything with small metal clips within reach. And go ahead and accept that the cards at the very ends of the line will get crooked and that’s fine — nobody but you will notice.

Six options, and five of them cost less than a wreath! If you’ve been taping cards to a door because you didn’t know what else to do (which is genuinely where I was for three years), pick whichever one matches the wall you’ve got and be done with it.

And if you put together a card display this year, please post it on Instagram and tag me @sugardesignco — I love seeing how y’all lay these out, especially the entry table versions!

-Ciera

Made something with this? Tag me @sugardesignco — I love seeing them.