What to Write on Holiday Cards for Business
I’ve spent approximately 15 hours in the past 4 days making “holiday cards’ for every co-worker on my project down here in Louisiana. That was 38 people. I made 56 cards total), but one of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out other ways to say Happy Holidays.
As most of you know, this day in age, it’s a little bit frowned upon in the workplace (up north in the U.S. at least) to say Merry Christmas, so then you end up with a more generic Happy Holidays. Which is kind of boring, so I did some brainstorming.
I went through holiday songs and holiday themes to come up with other ways to say Happy Holidays when making these cards. Here’s a bit more about how that card-making process went:
Step 1: Choose a Neutral Holiday Image for the Front of the Card
The first step was to choose an image for the front of the cards that was festive, but not overwhelmingly Christmas. The ladies all got a cover that featured a strand of colorful holiday lights and the gentlemen all got a cover that featured penguins dressed in scarves. There are so many ways to convey the holidays without being specific to a holiday:
Keep the color scheme. Colors like white, gold, silver, and blue all convey the holiday message without being overly Christmas-focused.
Choose a card without words on the front. To keep it simple, choose a card that doesn’t say anything on the front. This will keep the message more generic.
Choose a card that focuses on the Season. I feel like this is easier in the Northern Hemisphere because the holidays fall in winter, which come with snow. Snow also comes with a bunch of cute animals like polar beers, penguins, and deer. But if it’s snowing in the north that means it’s beach weather in the south, so there’s always something fun about the season to celebrate.
Choose a card that focuses on the New Year. This one is hard to argue with. Sometimes it’s easier to just skip the holidays all together and jump straight to the New Year. This will alleviate needing to associate your card with a holiday all together.
These days sites like Minted, Tiny Prints, Shutterfly, and Snapfish make this easy to do.
Here are some of my favorite Amazon options that I’ve found to date:
Step 2: Choose a non-denominational way to say Happy Holidays on the inside (& outside) of the card
After doing some research I came up with a handful of sayings that were simple and didn’t have too much to do with the holidays specifically:
Peace, Peace on Earth
Joy, Joy to the World
Happy Holidays, Happiest Holidays
Season’s Greetings
‘Tis the Season
Holiday Wishes, Warmest Wishes
Be Merry
Let it Snow
Cheers
Happy New Year
Merry Everything
Happy Everything
Celebrate
Be Merry
You could also consider quoting song lyrics from a Christmas song that aren’t quite as focused on Christmas, for example:
Jingle Bells
Sleigh Ride
Winter Wonderland
Let it Snow
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
Step 3: Write a message that focuses on general holidays
Finally, when I wrote the inside of the cards – besides a personal message (whether it be something I admired about the person, an interesting encounter that I had with the person, or repeating something interesting that I had learned about them) – I focused on having a great holiday season and having a happy New Year!
New Years is a good default because no matter what religion you celebrate, January 1st is the start of a New Year. I think I even wished somebody a Happy End of December – that one might have been a stretch. But, hey, what did you expect out of 35 cards?
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Do you have any tips for keeping your holiday cards a little more Christmas-neutral when you need to? I’d love to hear what other ways you say Happy Holidays.
That said, Merry Christmas, y’all.
