10 Happy Holidays Card Messages for Friends and Family Near and Far

You wrapped the presents, baked Santa’s cookies, and scraped the frosty ice off your windshield. The holiday season is just around the corner, and this year you are prepared. The only thing left to do? Wish those you love a happy holiday with the cutest happy holidays card you can find.

But how do you say “happy holidays” without actually writing “happy holidays“ 50 times over? If you’re struggling to fill your holiday greeting card with a memorable message, we have a few ideas for you.

With so many loved ones coming from different parts of your life and corners of the world, there are many greetings you can extend. It’s a time to reminisce about friendly jokes, swap old family photos, or enjoy a hot beverage by the fire.

Below, we’re sharing 10 things you could write in your happy holidays card — all of which are more personalized than happy holidays, season’s greetings, or merry Christmas.

10 Things to Write in Your Happy Holidays Card

From holiday games to recipes to memories galore, we’re sharing 10 creative ways to customize a holiday card template to wish your loved ones a happy holiday. Hopefully this sparks a few ideas to help you enjoy the season with those you love.

1. “Fun & Games Card” for Winter Holiday Activities

Design: Ringleader Paper Co.

Is being overly-competitive sort of your friends’ and family’s thing? Are cross-generation alliances formed during a game of Spades? Do you still have the homemade trophy from last year’s charades contest?

If Friday night is game night at your place, here’s a holiday card idea: Write down your 10 favorite games to play with friends and family (think 8+ people) or other cold-weather activities your friends would enjoy. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get a reply from a family just as competitive as yours.

2. “Pop the Bubbly Card” for Champagne Cocktail Recipes

Design: Becky Nimoy Stationery

New Year’s Eve is right around the corner, and bottles will be poppin’. Whether you’re celebrating with a New Year’s Day brunch, toasting to the holidays, or just keeping one another warm by the fire, there are more ways to enjoy a bottle of champagne than by the glass.

Send out this happy holidays card with your own champagne cocktail recipe, virtually raising your glass to your family, friends, colleagues, and loved ones who helped make another year great. (If you’re not up to date on your mixology, these ideas should get you started).

3. “Hold Us Together Card” for Office Battle Stories

Design: Hudson Meet Rose

Are your colleagues more like family than coworkers? Do you retreat to happy hour with your work buddies the moment five o’clock hits? So often, we see our coworkers more than our other friends and family — and we can’t help but get attached.

Send out this business card design to your cubicle buddies, listing three memories that have nothing to do with new product launches or new customers. The time you threw a baby shower for Rachel, decorated each others’ desks at birthdays, or snuck a puppy into the office.

4. “Gingerbread House Card” with Where to Find the Best Christmas Lights

Design: Becky Nimoy Stationery

Does your hometown go all-out for the Christmas season? Are you low-key positive that Clark from “Christmas Vacation” lives on your block?

If your neighborhood has enough Christmas lights to cause a state-wide power outage, this festive Christmas greeting card will help you share your passion for festive, holiday architecture.

For the card message, write friends and family a top-10 list of home decor and light displays to walk past. Are most of your loved ones out of town? No problem. Write a top-five list of why they should visit during the holiday season (Does the house across the street still have the 20-foot tall snowman?).

5. “Gift Stack Card” with Your Wishes for Next Year

Design: Patrice Horvath Design

We know, we know — you don’t like getting gifts because when you want something you just buy it. Well, that’s no reason you can’t have a little holiday fun, right?

This year, rather than filling your shopping cart with gifts, send out this Christmas gift card, writing down a different wish for each month of next year. Whether you hope your nieces and nephews get a snow day in April or you hope your brother actually finishes his taxes before the deadline, you’ll have 12 warm wishes to manifest next year. Each month, you’ll see which gifts ripped themselves open and which stayed in the package.

6. “Lit Martini Card” for Nights You Love to Forget

Design: Paper Raven Co.

Oh, how far you and your friends have come. One minute, you’re eighteen and standing outside in sub-zero temperatures in a tube top, the next you’re signing mortgages and getting excited about new vacuum cleaners.

To reconnect and reminisce with friends who are now scattered across the country, send them this Christmas martini card. On the inside, write five memories that you once wanted to forget (perhaps that holiday party that got out of hand?) but now find so fun to remember.

7. “Modern Happy Everything” for Sharing Old Family Photos

Design: Up Up Creative

Each year, you send out an updated collection of your family photos. You make everyone wear coordinating outfits and pose by the fireplace, and you’re in the mood for something … new. And by new, we mean old.

Rather than share another montage of family photos (you shared them on Instagram already anyway), why not do something different?

Dig out the old family albums, and make a collage of your mom (who looks just like your daughter) in her softball uniform, your grandma and grandpa at their first dance, or your dad holding you during your terrible twos. Who in your family looks like whom?

8. “Naughty&Nice Card” to Give the Gift of Sarcasm

Design: Bethany McDonald Design

Are your friendships built on memes and sarcasm? Do you and your friends find it oddly unnerving to dish out compliments, rather than poke fun at one another?

To catch up with your old gang, send out this friendly Christmas card. On the inside, write 10 traits you outwardly mock, yet secretly adore about your friends and family: the way Ben pronounces the “G” in gyro, Annie’s shameless obsession with Valentine’s day and mistletoe, and Katie’s ability to put down two frozen pizzas in one sitting.

If your whole Christmas mailing list isn’t in on the jokes, take the self-deprecating approach instead. Write down 10 things about yourself that you’re grateful they put up with: the way you snort when you laugh, the fact that you’ll buy anything coated in glitter, or the six sugars you take in your coffee.

9. “Painted Spruce Card” for Your Parents’ Holiday Hoarding

Design: Chica Design

Did your mom keep every, single homemade ornament you created from kindergarten to 5th grade? Was Christmas Eve a time for stringing popcorn around the Christmas tree?

Now that you’re an adult and have children of your own, what are your favorite traditions around the holidays? For this holiday photo card, write down your top five favorite holiday activities, from tree-trimming, sledding down the hillside, or decorating sugar cookies.

10. “Minimalist Snowflakes Card” for All You’re Thankful For

Design: Signature Greenvelope

All out of creative ideas? Not even close — we saved the best for last.

The holidays are a time for expressing gratitude, especially to those special people who stand by us year after year. So this season, create a holiday thank you card with 5-10 things you’re thankful for from the past year. Thank your friends and family for helping you move into your new apartment, being there for you on your wedding day, or traveling near and far to see you during the holidays.

There Are No Rules for What to Write in Your Holiday Greeting Card

This time of year, there is an unlimited number of ways to wish your friends and family a happy holiday. Create a winter scavenger hunt, write down a fun memory, or write about the “worst” Christmas in memory that now easily ranks as your family’s favorite.

From all of us at Greenvelope, we wish you a very happy holiday season. We want to make it as easy as possible to get your Christmas message out and into the inboxes of each person you care about. Simply select your favorite holiday card template, customize it with your unique message, and send it to those you love. There are no stamps, gift tags, address labels, or wondering whether you’re out of ink — just beautifully crafted messages.

We hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year!