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Christmas

Christmas messages for your best friend: 7 to write or borrow

A christmas message for your best friend should name one real detail, not offer a general wish. Start with the specific thing they did during your worst year and say why it matters. You can send the 7 examples below as written, but replacing one detail with your own memory will make it personal.

Updated

The opening screen of a Christmas Quest, a lit snow globe on a midnight blue background

Christmas Quest

how it opens

A best friend already knows how the year went, because they were in most of it. That rules out the seasonal summary and leaves only the thing you have not said.

The difficulty with writing to a best friend is that nothing is new. They already know the history, already know how you feel, and have heard every version of your affection delivered as a joke.

Christmas messages are written in bulk, and everybody knows it. The reader can tell within one line whether they are receiving a message or a distribution.

7 christmas messages for your best friend

  1. Heartfelt
    One sincere sentence and then back to normal: this year would have been considerably worse without you. Merry Christmas.
  2. Funny
    Merry Christmas to the person who knows all my secrets and has still not sold them. Loyalty.
  3. Warm
    Another December, another year of you. Happy Christmas.
  4. Short
    Merry Christmas. Love you. Moving on.
  5. Funny
    Happy Christmas. I got you the thing you mentioned once in March and assumed I had forgotten.
  6. Heartfelt
    You are the constant in an otherwise fairly chaotic year. Merry Christmas.
  7. Short
    Happy Christmas to the emergency contact.

What actually works in a Christmas message to your best friend

The temptation is to make it entirely a joke, since that is the established register. One straight line is what makes it worth keeping.

A best friend card that is entirely funny is a card they will laugh at and recycle. One straight line in the middle of it is the part that gets photographed.

Reference the year that has actually happened. A Christmas card that could have been sent in any of the last five years announces itself immediately.

Timing and etiquette for a Christmas message to your best friend

If someone has lost a person this year, their first Christmas without them is the thing to acknowledge.

A Christmas Quest hub on a midnight blue screen titled 'A Winter Night for Maya', with lights waking one by one

A Winter Night for Maya

christmas · winter light trail

Details only you would know about your best friend

The specific thing they did during your worst year is usually the fastest way in. Swap one general phrase in any message above for one of these and the borrowed line becomes yours - your best friend will recognize it immediately, which is the entire point.

  • The specific thing they did during your worst year
  • A piece of you that only exists because you know them
  • The joke that would be unforgivable from anyone else
  • A time they were honest with you at their own cost
  • The ordinary ritual that is the actual substance of the friendship
  • Something they do not believe about themselves that is true
  • The thing you have never thanked them for
  • What your life would have looked like without them in it

What goes wrong when people write to best friends

  • Hiding entirely behind the joke

    The rapport is built on not being sincere, which makes sincerity the one thing missing. Break format once, deliberately.

  • Assuming they know

    They probably do. Hearing it stated anyway is the point - people keep the written version of things they already knew.

  • Summarising the friendship in general terms

    A recap of how long you have known each other is available to anyone. The single specific incident is not.

Common questions

What is the best christmas message for your best friend?
Pick one real detail - the specific thing they did during your worst year - and build two or three sentences around it. The difficulty with writing to a best friend is that nothing is new, which is why a message that could only have been written to your best friend outperforms a longer, more polished one that could go to anyone.
What should you not write to your best friend?
Avoid hiding entirely behind the joke. The rapport is built on not being sincere, which makes sincerity the one thing missing. Break format once, deliberately.
How long should a christmas message be?
Two to four sentences, with at least one referring to something that actually happened this year. Seasonal wishes can close it, not carry it.
How do you make a christmas message sound personal rather than copied?
Change one detail to something only you would know. Take any message here and replace its general noun with a piece of you that only exists because you know them. That single substitution is what separates a message that sounds borrowed from one that sounds like you wrote it.

When a Christmas message is not quite enough for your best friend

December is a reasonable time to say the thing you spent the other eleven months deflecting.

BloomQuest takes the same raw material this page has been asking you for - the specific thing they did during your worst year, the thing you would never say out loud - and turns it into a small private world your best friend opens from one link. Your words, their memories, and a finale you write yourself.

The Christmas world is built for exactly this. Free to build and preview; you only pay when you share it.

Other messages for your best friend

More christmas messages

All christmas messages · Everything for your best friend

When a Christmas message is not quite enough for your best friend

December is a reasonable time to say the thing you spent the other eleven months deflecting.

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