New Year 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. Happy New Year to everyone at home. Thank you for holding the year together, especially through the months that weren't easy on any of us. Whatever this one turns out to be, I'm glad it's this family going into it. Wishing all of you health first.

   Continue writing with message 1

2. Happy New Year to all of you. I'm not going to promise this one will be kind, but I hope it's quieter than the last twelve months were, and I hope the good parts land before the difficult ones do. I'll be there for more of this year.

   Continue writing with message 2

3. Happy New Year to the whole house. Wishing all of you fewer of the hard weeks and many more of the ordinary, quietly good ones. Thank you for every phone call I didn't have to ask for last year. Let's manage more time together in this one.

   Continue writing with message 3

4. Happy New Year, all of you. Papa's resolution will last nine days, the walking plan will last a fortnight, and I'll be exactly the same as I was in December. Some things hold. Hope this year is a good deal easier on all of you.

   Continue writing with message 4

5. Happy New Year. Same midnight phone call, same terrible network, same thirty people shouting in the background, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Whatever this year holds for all of you, I hope it's lighter than the one just finished.

   Continue writing with message 5

6. Happy New Year to every one of you. I won't promise this one will be kind, because last year taught all of us not to, but I hope it's quieter, and I hope the good parts arrive before the difficult ones. Thank you for holding everything together through the worst of it. I'll be there for more of this year.

   Copy

Writing your own

Acknowledge what the family got through. Families rarely say out loud that a year was hard and that they survived it together. A New Year card is the natural place, and it is the line that will be remembered from an otherwise ordinary greeting.

Keep the wish modest and put health first. In most Indian families that is not a cliché, it is the actual priority, and a card that says health first, everything else after sounds like a member of the family rather than a greeting.