Christmas wishes for your family

Six messages you could actually send

Continue writing opens that message in the card with the words already in it, so all that is left is to change a word and send it. The last message is the longest of the six, and it is the only one you have to copy across yourself.

1. Merry Christmas to everyone at home. Missing the whole morning, not just the lunch. Save me a plate, take a photo of the tree, and tell me what everyone got each other. Wishing all of you a warm, slow day and a gentler year ahead. 🎄

   Continue writing with message 1

2. Merry Christmas to all of you. It's an ordinary working Tuesday here, which makes the whole thing feel stranger than usual. Hope the house is loud, the cake holds out, and nobody has to do the washing up twice. Thinking of every one of you.

   Continue writing with message 2

3. Merry Christmas to the whole house. Thank you for the year, and for the fact that nothing about home ever needs explaining. Hope the day is warm and lazy and completely uneventful. Next year I'm there for the whole week, properly.

   Continue writing with message 3

4. Merry Christmas, all of you. I'm assuming the tree went up crooked, somebody has been playing the same four songs since morning, and the cake was cut before lunch. Please carry on exactly as you are. Hope the day is a lovely one.

   Continue writing with message 4

5. Merry Christmas. The one I keep thinking about is the year the lights failed halfway through and we ate by candles instead, and it turned out better. Missing all of you today. Play the same songs far too loudly on my behalf.

   Continue writing with message 5

6. Merry Christmas to all of you. It's an ordinary working week here, so the day arrives without any of the noise that's supposed to come with it. Hope the tree is crooked, the cake gets cut early, and the same four songs play until somebody complains. Save me a plate. Next year I'm home for the whole week.

   Copy

Writing your own

Say what the day is like where you are. Being somewhere Christmas is not a holiday is a specific and slightly desolate thing, and describing it in one line does more than any amount of missing you.

Ask for the ordinary details. The tree, the songs, who fell asleep after lunch. It gives the family something easy to send back and keeps the card from being a one-way apology.