Text Me Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas! xoxo
Two words and two letters can mean so many different things when they’re showing up on a fully charged phone December 25. It’s the infamous holiday text, the one that comes through on your family group chat or from your coworker Natalie or from the guy you met at the local bar the night before whose name you have saved as Zack Thick Hand. I got acupuncture back in 2013, and the specialist still sends me a message every year with a still frame of the bird lady from Home Alone 2. Most people send a simple emoji or even a GIF, but Susan the acupuncturist opts for one promotional image of character actress Brenda Fricker. I wish I could tell you Susan sends me a graphic of the character smiling and saying, “Happy Holidays,” but it’s literally just a close-up of the pigeon lady with birds around her neck staring deeply into the camera with a grimace. Feliz Navidad, Susan! I write back to her annually. I must’ve mentioned the character during my last visit, so it’s become a bad inside joke, even though I don’t really know anything about Susan other than she stuck needles in my skin one year. I can’t judge because I’m the crazy person who brought up the seasonal sequel side character in conversation with a woman I had just met, surely wanting to discuss how she was technically the female lead while Susan curbed my anxiety with needles.
All this is to say that I’m an expert in the holiday text, which is why I’m going to provide some ways to spruce up that SMS. Susan’s impulse to send the pigeon lady was actually spot on in a lot of ways because the first rule of holiday texting is that you need to personalize with an attachment. People are especially lazy when it comes to this. I often notice that they will search “xmas” and attach the first GIF that shows up. It’s usually Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf squatting with his hands between his knees like he’s gotta piss and wearing a big smile on his face. Nothing wrong with Buddy—we love that big elf—but enough. It’s not personal. And neither is that generic snowman GIF with the sunglasses on it. Give a little pizzazz! Find a movie or TV show that the receiver knows is specific to you. My lesbian friend likes to send an image of Rooney Mara from the indie drama Carol starring her and Cate Blanchett. The moment I see Rooney wearing a Santa hat on my phone, I know my buddy Leslie is three glasses of pinot noir deep at her dad’s house. When I reach out to my old college bestie Michelle on the big day, I like to send a clip of that Saved by the Bell holiday episode where Zack invites an unhoused man to live with him because he wants to hook up with his daughter (we should explore that episode some other time), while my buddy Beth gets a reminder of that time Teresa Giudice tossed her sister’s sprinkle cookies in the garbage on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. If you’re not a pop culture junkie, simply attach a selfie next to your passed-out aunt or a video of you and your drunk grandpa. It makes it more meaningful!
There are some exceptions to this attachment rule, namely if you’re sending a text to a crush. You could still go with one of the aforementioned suggestions, but I think it’s best to go with a simple smiling selfie instead of an attached image of a fictional character. Just make sure you’re not too drunk, and if you’re sipping wine, make sure you don’t have a wine smile that makes you look like the Joker. We all get the pitter-patters when a text from a crush comes through, and I think often people try too hard to make it something super clever or witty. Or people overplay the sarcasm, and it just ends up coming across as mean. One time, a guy I liked sent me you can’t afford to eat as many cookies as Santa with a picture of Saint Nick eating some snickerdoodles, and it emotionally broke me. He was trying to neg me, but it just left a sour taste in my mouth. Of course, we casually dated through Valentine’s Day because that’s who I am, but I broke it off as soon as Target put their candy hearts on clearance. If you like someone, just be simple and kind; it will mean the world to the receiver.
Punctuation, spelling, font—these are all important in crafting this once-a-year message. I’m a stickler for spelling, so make sure you aren’t writing Mary Christmas! although I think it’s okay to write Merry Xmas! which reads as less formal and less religious. I also prefer the xo to be uniform, so I will ignore my phone’s suggestion of capitalizing the x in favor of a simple xoxo. An emoji shows you used a bit more effort, so include a heart or tree or both! Certain phones have options like confetti on the screen or making the words look bigger, but I think those take things a little too far and make it look less clean.
Ultimately, none of this matters as much as the person you’re sending a message to, so be sure to curate your crowd throughout the year. Surround yourself with the kind of people who will write you and whom you want to reach out to. If you know that someone you love is spending the day alone or struggling with the season, be sure to message them first. This time of year can be incredibly lonely and isolating, so take care of each other. Good people are hard to come by, so don’t take them for granted. A text takes just a few seconds and can really make someone’s day.
If I had all your phone numbers, I would text you myself, but instead I leave you with this…
