Update on December 27, 2011: For New Year's greetings, read this post.
If you--like me--have not yet mailed all your business and personal holiday greetings, you are probably too late for Hanukkah and Christmas. However, you--like me--are just in time to send New Year's greetings. (This thought sustains me.) So I wanted to help you with that tricky New Year's punctuation and capitalization.
These are correct:
- Happy New Year!
- We wish you a beautiful new year.
- Happy 2007!
- We look forward to working with you in the new year.
These also are correct:
- We send you New Year's wishes.
- We will see you New Year's Eve.
- On New Year's Day and every day, we wish you joy and happiness.
The point is that New Year's Day and New Year's Eve have apostrophes. Of course, New Year does not. And if you are referring to the holiday, it is capitalized: New Year's Day. But if you are simply referring to next year, it is not: in the new year. (Although "Happy New Year!" is standard.)
In December 2005, I wrote message templates for New Year's greetings. You can find them and other suggestions on New Year's greetings here.
Happy holidays! Happy New Year!
Until next year--week,
Lynn
Lynn,
I wish you a happy New Year as well.
Thank you for all the educational articles you have written this year.
Thanks,
Patrick
Posted by: Patrick | December 23, 2006 at 02:35 PM
Ok but is "happy" capitalize as in: we would like to wish all of our affiliates a happy New Year!
Posted by: LuLu | January 20, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Why do you write:
a birthday card
a Christmas card...but
a New Year's card(with apostrophe)?
Posted by: Jasmine | September 13, 2011 at 04:09 PM
Hi, Jasmine. I would send you a New Year's card to celebrate New Year's Day.
The name of the day has an apostrophe.
Lynn
Posted by: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston | September 13, 2011 at 04:43 PM
hi, can you please help me to write an email message to send to the guests to wish them haapy new year.
Regards
Posted by: Aziz | December 27, 2011 at 05:09 AM
Hello, Aziz. Please read my December 27 post. I believe you will find the right message there.
Happy new year!
Lynn
Posted by: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston | December 27, 2011 at 12:41 PM
Hello....I am late trying to send some of my prospect clients a New Years greeting...
Will you help me with right words,
Tks.
ceciñia
Posted by: Cecilia | January 04, 2012 at 09:43 PM
Dear Lynn,
I hope all is well with you,
I want to send a happy new year formal email to my professor, would you please help me with that? and could you please email me?
thanks in advance
shamim
Posted by: shamim | March 11, 2013 at 10:15 AM
Hello, Shamim. I am afraid I do not have time to email you with a sample message.
I wish you success in your communication. One effective way to write is to capitalize your name, the first word of each sentence, and the first word of the complimentary close.
Lynn
Posted by: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston | March 11, 2013 at 06:22 PM
How about New Year's Resolution? What, if anything, do you capitalize?
Posted by: Karl | March 31, 2013 at 06:18 PM
Hi, Karl. It is a resolution for the new year. Since none of those words is capitalized, I would write "new year's resolution."
Lynn
Posted by: Lynn Gaertner-Johnston | April 02, 2013 at 09:33 AM