The Christmas card industry has decided what Christmas is supposed to feel like, and most of us know it doesn't actually feel like that. The cards are written for a fictional family that never argues at dinner, where the snow is always light and decorative, and where someone has the patience to assemble a yule log on a baking sheet. If your actual Christmas involves passive-aggressive seating arrangements, dietary restriction landmines, and at least one person crying in a bathroom, this guide is for you.
The five honest categories of Christmas cards
1. The survival card
Acknowledges the reality of family Christmas: the politics, the dinner arguments, the cousin who's still single and tired of being asked about it. These cards work because everyone receiving one is also surviving Christmas, and pretending otherwise is exhausting.
2. The sacrilegious card
Christmas is technically a religious holiday. For families that aren't particularly religious, an honest card that gently acknowledges this lands harder than the “peace on Earth” standard. Works for friends, siblings, and most adult family.
3. The dark humor / honest card
Acknowledges the financial pressure, the gift fatigue, the fact that we're all eating cookies for breakfast for two weeks straight. Bonds people through shared exhaustion.
4. The roast card
Affectionate insult. Works for the relatives you actually like — your siblings, your favorite cousin, the friend you traded gifts with for 15 years.
5. The self-aware sincere card
Acknowledges that Christmas cards are mostly a performance, then says something real anyway. The escape hatch when nothing else fits.
20 funny Christmas card messages
For family
- Merry Christmas. Don't fight with your family. (Knowing this is unrealistic.)
- Hope your Christmas is at least 60% peaceful.
- Merry Christmas. Statistically, someone is going to cry today. May it not be you.
- Wishing you a Christmas that contains at least one mostly-pleasant moment.
- Merry Christmas. The leftovers will be the best part. Pace yourself.
For friends
- Merry Christmas to my favorite reason to leave my own family early.
- Hope your Christmas involves zero phone calls from anyone you'd rather avoid.
- Wishing you a Christmas with people you chose, not just people you're related to.
- Cheers to surviving another holiday season together.
- Merry Christmas. May your in-law interactions be brief.
For partners
- Merry Christmas. I'll defend you at my family's dinner. I expect the same.
- Christmas is hard. We're harder. Merry Christmas.
- Hope this Christmas involves both our families AND survives the experience.
- Merry Christmas. We made it through another holiday season. That's the gift.
- You + me + Christmas. Three out of three would be challenging.
For coworkers
- Merry Christmas. May your inbox respect the holiday.
- Workplace-appropriate seasonal greeting.
- Hope your Christmas is at least as good as our last all-hands.
- Merry Christmas from someone who remembers your name and very little else.
- Wishing you the maximum legally allowed number of paid days off.
What to write inside
Hey —
Hope you survive your family. Hope they survive you. Hope the food is good and at least one moment of the day actually feels like the holiday it's supposed to be.
Love (or at least mild affection),
[Name]
Where to find honest Christmas cards
Browse our funny Christmas cards. Every card is designed in-house, printed in the USA on heavy 270gsm FSC-certified paper. Cards for friends and family who'd rather laugh than recite “Wishing you a joyous holiday season.”