Happy Holidays Greetings
While Happy Holidays greetings are expressed frequently, not a lot of folks put much time into composing the right words for their friends and family.
Here’s where we can help.
It’s that time of the year again. You know, the time when seasonal and holiday wishes are sent and received. Most of us associate this practice with Christmas, some others with Hanukkah, and still others send greetings for the winter solstice.
If you are at a loss for something unique to say in your holiday greeting, below are some of our favorite examples. Some secular and some religious. Some are serious, and some are funny.
Choose how to express yourself in a way that’s comfortable for you. So, heat up some hot chocolate and enjoy the process.
Happy Holidays – Secular Greetings
1.) May the blessings of peace, goodwill, and happiness be with you at Christmas. May this Christmas bring you much joy and happiness, and may your New Year be merry and bright. Thanks for being such a great friend! Always.
2.) May the peace and blessings of Christmas be yours, And may the coming year be filled with happiness.
3.) May the holiday season bring only happiness and joy to you and your loved ones.
4.) As you relish the goodies, decorate every nook and corner of your home, and enjoy the get-togethers, may the joy and festivities continue to radiate in your lives long after Christmas is gone. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!
5.) We hope you have a fabulous Christmas surrounded by family and friends, and we wish you all the best for the new year!
6.) Wishing you a joyous Holiday Season and a happy and prosperous New Year.
7.) May the holiday season fill your home with joy, your heart with love, and your life with laughter.
8.) Whatever is beautiful. Whatever is meaningful. And whatever brings you happiness. May it be yours this holiday season and throughout the coming year.
9.) Let the spirit of love gently fill our hearts and homes. In this loveliest of seasons, may you find many reasons for happiness.
Funny Greetings
10.) Do you know those commercials where the present is a brand-new car with a big red bow? Yeah, we’re not doing that.
11.) Another Christmas already? Seriously, what the Elf?
12.) The 12 Days of Christmas guy really had a thing about birds, huh? Let’s hope you don’t know anyone crazy enough to give you 23 birds this holiday season.
13.) This holiday, let’s be more Christmas Carol ending and less Christmas Story beginning… where he shoots his eye out.
14.) Nobody loves Christmas more than me. And I love you even more than Christmas… or at least it’s close.
15.) This holiday season, let us treasure what is important in all our lives, truly, the reason for the season: Cookies.
16.) Christmas is not about presents. It’s about family… and spiral ham…. and who in the family is bringing the spiral ham?
17.) If you warm me with your holiday spirit, I promise to inspire you with my holiday cheer. We’ll be disgustingly full of happiness together.
Religious Greetings
18.) As you gaze upon the Christmas lights, remember who the true light of Christmas
19.) Let us extend this Christmas cheer throughout the entire year.
20.) And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Luke 2:10
21.) Blessings be with you this festival of lights and always. Happy Hanukkah!
22.) May love and light fill your home and heart at Hanukkah.
23.) She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
Matthew 1:21
24.) Joy to the world! The Lord has come! Let Earth receive her King!
25.) Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.
Luke 2:14
Happy Hanukkah
26.) Happy Hanukkah, still ours, the dance, the feast, the great psalm, the mystic, lights of emblem & the word!
27.) On Hanukkah, some people ask why could not we light all eight candles in one night instead of having to light a new one for each of the eight nights. It is because Hanukkah is not merely a cause for celebrations. It is a trail of perseverance! Happy Hanukkah!
28.) At this time of year, when the sun is most hidden, the holiday of Hanukkah celebrates the rays of hope and light. Often, it is through true and unrecognized miracles that we can feel the warmth of hope and light. Happy Hanukkah!
Check out our full page of Happy Hanukkah greetings, wishes, and messages.
Blessed Christmas Messages
29.) The magic of Christmas is not in the presents but in His presence.
30.) Wise men still seek Him.
31.) Christmas began in the heart of God. It is complete only when it reaches the heart of man.
32.) Christmas is not only about buying new clothes and preparing sweets. Christmas is about spreading the love of Jesus Christ to whomever you meet.
33.) Love has a name. JESUS Love has a place. Our hearts. Love has a story. And it’s not finished yet.
34.) For everybody in the world, whatever color their skin may be, whatever their religion may be, whatever their situation is, Have a Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas
35.) Christmas is the best example of great things coming in small packages. The best gift the world was ever given came in the form of a little baby.
36.) The light of the Christmas star to you. The warmth of home and heart to you. The cheer and goodwill of friends to you. The hope of a childlike heart to you. The joy of a thousand angels to you. The love of the Son and God’s peace to you.
37.) Rejoice, it’s the time to cheer, In the name of the Lord so Dear. It’s the season to spread joy. So feel sacred and enjoy the holy season of the year. Merry Christmas!
Christmas Season Instagram Captions
38.) Season’s greetings and best wishes for a happy, healthy, and joyous holiday season.
39.) Warmest wishes for a joyous holiday season!
40.) Feliz Navidad!
41.) May you have a wonderful holiday season filled with many blessings.
42.) Wishing you and your family a very happy holiday season!
43.) It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
44.) Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
45.) Have a holly jolly Christmas.
46.) Candy cane wishes and mistletoe kisses.
Send a greeting to the ones you love this holiday season
Sure, you could just shoot off a text. What could be easier? The fact that you took the time to select a card, write a greeting, address, stamp, and mail an envelope will mean much more to the recipient than a text message with some silly emoji.
We still yearn to be connected, just like our Neolithic ancestors did. If some caveman could take the time to scratch his message on a stone and hurl it in the general direction of the intended recipient, surely you can throw another log on the fire. So pull up the old writing table, find a pen, and put your thoughts on paper.
You make an impression when you make your message an event. Show you care; put a little effort into your holiday greetings this year.
Happy Holidays Quotes
47.) Mankind is a great, an immense family… This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.
Pope John Paul XXIII
48.) The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the sons of God.
C.S.Lewis
49.) For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.
Charles Dickens
50.) The very purpose of Christ’s coming into the world was that He might offer up His life as a sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. This is the heart of Christmas.
Rev. Billy Graham
51.) Remembrance, like a candle, burns brightest at Christmas time.
Charles Dickens
52.) Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace.
Pope Francis
Happy Holiday Season
53.) The joy of brightening other lives becomes for us the magic of the holidays.
W. C. Jones
54.) Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
Hamilton Wright Mabie
55.) The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others’ burdens, easing each other’s loads, and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of the holidays.
W. C. Jones
56.) Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.
John Boswell
57.) What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, and hope for the future.
Agnes M. Pahro
58.) Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.
Winston Churchill
Funny Holiday Christmas Card Messages
59.) You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
Maya Angelou
60.) There are three stages of man: he believes in Santa Claus; he does not believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus.
Bob Phillips
61.) One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.
Andy Rooney
62.) Christmas is like candy; it slowly melts in your mouth, sweetening every taste bud, and making you wish it could last forever.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Inspirational Holiday Quotes
63.) The message of Christmas is that the visible material world is bound to the invisible spiritual world. Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more.
Dr. Seuss
64.) Christmas Day is a day of joy and charity. May God make you very rich in both.
Phillips Brooks
65.) Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas time.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
66.) I truly believe that if we keep telling the Christmas story, singing the Christmas songs, and living the Christmas spirit, we can bring joy and happiness, and peace to this world.
Norman Vincent Peale
67.) And when we give each other Christmas gifts in His name, let us remember that He has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans – and all that lives and moves upon them.
Unknown
68.) He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we quarrel about and all that we have misused – and to save us from our foolishness, from all our sins, He came down to Earth and gave us Himself.
Sigrid Undset
Happy Holidays FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions about the holidays and the phrase “Happy Holidays.”
What are the Happy Holidays?
Essentially, the phrase “Happy Holidays” is a greeting during the winter holiday season to recognize Christmas, New Year’s Holiday, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and sometimes the Thanksgiving holidays.
Should I Say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?
Christmas is associated with Christians. So, if you know that someone is Christian or celebrates Christmas, using Merry Christmas works well.
Happy Holidays is more inclusive as it also addresses non-Christian holidays like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
Happy Christmas or Merry Christmas?
While folks in England also use “Merry Christmas,” there appears to be a preference for “Happy Christmas.” Apparently, the word happy is just more commonly used than the word merry, and well, it’s traditional. The word merry’s association with Christmas was popularized by Charles Dickens’ writings on the holiday.
Do you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays after Christmas?
Yes, to both. There really are 12 days of Christmas, beginning on December 25 and ending on January 6 with the Epiphany when the Magi visited Jesus.
As the phrase “Happy Holidays” also includes New Year’s, it’s not out of the norm to wish someone a good new year well into the month of January.
History of Happy Holidays
Whatever the holiday, there’s a long history behind this practice, a history that goes back to Neolithic time, more than seven thousand years ago.
When man began to transition from a hunter/gatherer social norm to the farmer/planter social model, we transitioned from a nomadic way of living to form the first cooperative social structures.
This way of living offered many advantages; a more reliable means of feeding the people is one of the main benefits. An agrarian society can stay in one place and can anticipate the changes in the seasons in order to plan accordingly.
The Seasons
Spring planting became the busiest time of the year. Summer offered an opportunity to plan and build. Fall brought the harvest, the second busiest time. Winter became a time of rest and reflection. The harvest was in, the larder was full, and the nights became long.
This gave early man ample time to pause and reflect, and his thoughts turned naturally to the people he knew, friends he’d made, and those he missed.
Reflection in the human mind brings forth sentiment, and sentiment needs to be expressed. Time and reflection led to the advent of the first seasonal greeting, most likely a pictograph scratched on a piece of bark or stone.
The early man watched the sun, moon, and stars intently. They recognized the recurring nature of the heavens. They could know when it was time to plant or time to harvest by observing the position of the objects in the sky.
Even with their geocentric view of the universe, the patterns in the sky were always a reliable measure of the progress of the year.
Why December 25 for Christmas?
So you must be thinking it’s a good thing Christmas is celebrated on December Twenty-fifth. This fits nicely with man’s long-standing practice. Not so fast! You can credit the early church for the date of Christmas.
As the early disciples traveled the known world bringing the message of their new religion, the people they contacted were Pagans who worshiped many gods, sometimes a different god for each season or circumstance.
In order to entice the pagans into their new church, the early founders made Christmas coincide with the fall/solstice celebration the pagans had been celebrating for generations. The same goes for Easter, which became time to line up with the Spring planting and fertility celebrations the pagans were already practicing.
Celestial Reasons for Happy Holidays
The heavens. The constant and reliable movement of heavenly bodies allows us to turn back time to any specific point in history.
If we turn the heavenly clock back to zero A.D., we find that the birth of Christ most likely was sometime early in the year, and his death in the early A.D., had to have been sometime late in the year if we believe the reported positions of the stars.
Many pagan symbols and practices are now a part of our modern traditions. Kissing under the mistletoe is a good example. That holiday wreath on your door? An ancient pagan symbol.
Dancing around the Maypole? A pagan rite. How about the custom of flowers at a funeral? That practice goes way back. Flowers were ordinarily used at funerals to mask the smell of death.
A Time For Reconnecting
It really doesn’t matter. Times may change, but we are all still human. The harvest is in, the larder is full, the nights are getting cold and long, and we are still left with our reflections, just as we were in ancient times.
Like our Neolithic ancestors, it’s time to send out a few greetings; to reconnect with some of the important people in our lives.
Happy Holidays to all,
By Hal Barnes
Hal is a writer and author residing in Hudson, Wisconsin. Check out his book Death Row on Amazon.com.
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