A Christmas message for Mom and Dad, written the way your family talks

At 6:40 on Christmas morning your mom texts the family thread a slightly blurry photo of the tree, lights on, with Merry Christmas to my babies and four exclamation points. Your dad gives it a thumbs-up. Your brother sends a GIF.

Your turn. You type Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad! Love you guys, look at it, and delete guys.

It isn't that you don't mean it. It's that the first lines to show up would suit anybody's parents, and you're writing to yours.

Any one of these three will do it.

• Something that happened this year. A phone call, a favor, advice you actually took. Name the month if you remember it.
• A habit that's all hers or all his. The home-safe text, the don't-get-me-anything speech, the four-hours-early airport run. It's the kind of thing only their kid would notice.
• A small ask or a small plan. Sit down for the presents. Call me when the game's on. I'm coming in the spring.

And write the way your family talks. If nobody at your house says I love you out loud, a message full of declarations will read like someone else wrote it. In plenty of families, I thought of you is as tender as it gets.

The messages below were written for this article. Swap the car battery for your car battery.

Short

• Mom, every Christmas I've ever liked had you running it from the kitchen. Sit down for the presents this year. Merry Christmas.

With a memory from this year

• Mom, in March you stayed on the phone while I fell apart about the apartment falling through, and an hour later you texted me a listing. I live there now. Merry Christmas from the place you found.
• Mom, I hosted eight people for Thanksgiving and needed two days to recover. You did Christmas for all of us every year and never let it show. Thank you for every single one.

Funny

• Merry Christmas to the woman who texts "home safe?" before my plane has finished taxiing. Home safe, Mom. Love you.

For Mom when you can't be there

• Mom, I hate that I'm not walking through your door this year. Hang my stocking anyway. I'll call once you've had your coffee, and I want the full tour of the tree.

A lot of dads answer in one line. Don't write expecting a paragraph back.

Short

• Dad, I checked the oil before the drive because I could hear you asking. Merry Christmas. See you by dinner.

With a memory from this year

• Dad, in October you talked me through jump-starting the car from four states away and never once mentioned that you'd told me to replace the battery. I replaced it. Merry Christmas.

Funny

• Merry Christmas to the man who leaves for the airport four hours early and has never once missed a flight. I'll be ready at five, Dad.

For Dad when you can't be there

• Dad, I won't be there to hold the ladder or lose to you at cards this year. Call me when the game's on so we can complain about the refs together, and save my seat for next Christmas.

For the dad who doesn't do texts

• Dad, no need to write back. After all the times you said it by showing up, I figured I could say it once in writing: I love you.

If yours is a don't-get-me-anything dad, here are ideas for a Christmas gift for parents who want nothing to go with the message.

For the card on top of the gift, or for parents who share one phone and read everything out loud to each other.

• Mom and Dad, you still split one dessert and fight over the last bite like it's a first date. I'd like whatever that is. Merry Christmas. I've got the dishes.
• Merry Christmas to you both. It took me until this year to understand how much work goes into a house people want to come back to. I land on the 23rd, and this time I'm actually helping.
• It'll be Christmas morning there three hours before it is here. Open one thing without me, then call, and we'll do the rest on video. I want to see both your faces.

If you're spending the day in another state or another country, there's more in a long-distance Christmas.

Not every Christmas message comes out of an easy relationship. Maybe you spoke twice this year. Maybe there was a fight in the spring that nobody has brought up since.

You don't have to write what you don't feel, and December 25 isn't the day to settle anything. A short, true message does its job: it says you remembered. Don't ask for a reply, and don't reread it ten times after you hit send.

• Distant, no falling-out: Mom, we didn't talk much this year. I didn't want Christmas to go by without telling you I thought of you today. I hope it's a calm one.
• A dad you've never been close to: Dad, Merry Christmas. I don't have much to add, and I don't think you need me to. I wanted to say it anyway.
• After a fight that's still open: Merry Christmas. I haven't forgotten the spring, and I'm not writing to reopen it. I hope today is a good day for you.
• To open a door: Mom, I'm not sure how to start this again, so I'll start small: Merry Christmas. If you'd like to get coffee in January, I'll be there.
• Keeping your boundary: I'm wishing you a peaceful Christmas. I still need some distance, and both of those things are true.

Sending nothing is a legitimate choice too. These are for people who want to send something and can't find the tone.

Send it one-on-one. In the family thread your message lands between your brother's GIF and a photo of the cinnamon rolls, and your parents end up answering everyone at once. The group text is a different piece of writing, and there are examples in Christmas message for family.

Send it early. By noon your mom is basting something and your dad is hunting for batteries.

If they'd rather not read on a screen, record the same words as a voice memo or write them by hand. The method for paper is in what to write in a Christmas card.

Sometimes the message drags a photo along with it. You write about Christmas mornings as a kid and remember there's a print of that living room in a shoebox in the hall closet. Take a picture of it with your phone. Put it next to this year's.

That's what Eternal Gift is for. You build a page online with the photos, your message or a letter, a song and stickers, and they open it from a link or a QR code you can print and tuck into the card. The message is still the main thing. The photos show what it's talking about.