A New Year message for someone you love starts with the year you just had

It's 11:40 on New Year's Eve. The countdown show is on with the sound low, and somebody in the kitchen is hunting for the good glasses. You have a text open. You typed Happy New Year! Here's to and deleted it. Three times.

Meanwhile the family group chat has collected nine champagne GIFs and one long paragraph that somebody clearly copied and pasted to everyone they know.

That paragraph is the one you don't want to send. Below are nineteen New Year messages written for this article, sorted by who's reading. First, a few lines on what keeps one from sounding like it went out to forty people.

A New Year message faces two directions: the year that's ending and the one that's starting. The canned version only faces forward and wishes in bulk. Health, happiness, success, all the best.

The kind people read twice has two small parts.

1. One thing from this year with them in it. Not a recap of your year. A scene: the move, the flat tire, the lunch that ran until dark.
2. One plan with a month attached. We're taking that trip in April is a wish they can hold you to. Wishing you joy in the year ahead isn't.

Here's the test. Change the name at the top. If the message still works for somebody else, it's missing the scene.

If nothing comes to mind, open your camera roll and scroll back to January. The whole year is sitting there in order.

With a partner, the trap is the superlative. Best year of my life is something they've read before. One specific day isn't.

• For a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife: This was the year of the leaky dishwasher, two job changes, and the road trip where we argued about the playlist across three states. I wouldn't trade any of it. Happy New Year, love. First thing in January, we fix the dishwasher.
• Your first New Year's together: Last New Year's Eve I was at a party pretending to have fun, and I left before midnight. This year I'm exactly where I want to be at 11:59. Happy New Year. I'd like a lot more of these.
• Long distance: I'll be asleep when it turns midnight for you, so I'm sending this early and setting an alarm anyway. Call me at yours. I want to be your first call of the year, time zones permitting.
• Together for years: Twenty minutes to midnight and we're both in sweatpants, which tells me we did this year right. It was mostly bills and carpools, and there's nobody I'd rather be tired next to. Dinner in January, just us.

If you're spending the whole season in different zip codes, there's more in a long-distance Christmas. And for Christmas Eve itself, there's a separate set of Christmas messages for your partner. And if you want one night that's just the two of you before the month ends, there are ideas in Christmas for two.

In the family group chat, your message is up against GIFs, forwards and a photo of the cheese board. The one that wins mentions something only that family lived through.

• For the group chat: Family: this was the year of two graduations and one parking ticket nobody will admit to. I'm proud of all of you, ticket included. Happy New Year. First dinner's at my place, date to follow.
• For Mom and Dad: Mom, Dad: I heard myself say "because I said so" this year and thought of you both. You were right about more than I admitted. Happy New Year. I'm coming for a long weekend in February.
• When you won't be there at midnight: I'm on the road tonight and I'll hit midnight somewhere on the interstate. Somebody text me a photo of the living room at 12:01. Happy New Year. I'll be at the door by lunch.
• For a brother or sister: You're the only person who remembers the fort in the basement, and the only one I'd still build it with. Happy New Year. Call me on the 1st. I have gossip.
• For your partner's family: Happy New Year, and thank you for the birthday card in May. Nobody told you the date, which means somebody asked. I noticed. Here's to another year of your Sunday dinners.

Still writing the December ones? There's a separate set of Christmas messages for family.

Friendship can take sarcasm. Just don't let the joke do the job of the sincere line.

• For your best friend: You helped me move twice this year and only said "again?" once. Next year I promise to stay put and to buy the pizza up front. Happy New Year.
• For the group: We said "we should do this more" at every single dinner this year. I'm putting it in writing so there's a record. Second Friday of January, my place, bring chairs.
• For the friend who lives far away: It's nearly midnight there and I'm three hours behind, still in line for takeout. You kept me company on a lot of late drives home this year. Next year I'm booking the flight instead of talking about it. Hold me to that.
• For someone you barely talked to this year: I owe you about four phone calls and I'm done pretending I'll make them one at a time. Lunch in January. Pick a day and I'll clear it.

Here, Happy New Year can land like an assignment. Don't pretend the year was fine, and don't promise the next one will be. Name it in a sentence, offer something small, and let them off the hook for replying.

• It was a brutal year and I'm not going to dress that up. You kept going on days when that was the whole job. Don't worry about writing back. I'm dropping off soup on Thursday.
• The first New Year's after a loss: I keep thinking about how she'd have made everyone wear the paper hats. I don't have anything wise to say tonight. I'm a phone call away, and I'm free all day tomorrow.
• I'm skipping the big wishes this year. I hope you sleep, I hope the mail is boring, and I hope January asks very little of you. I'm around for the small stuff.

At midnight every text arrives at once, and the long one gets buried. One way around it: send the long message on the afternoon of the 31st or the morning of the 1st, and save a single line for midnight.

• Ten minutes left in the year and I'm spending one of them on you. Happy New Year.
• Happy New Year. Breakfast is on me whenever you wake up.
• New year, same us. Works for me.

You went into your camera roll for one scene and came back with twenty. That happens when you've spent a whole year near somebody.

In that case, don't pick one. Pick twelve. The method is in your year in photos: one photo per month, one line under each. It's the same line you'd send at midnight.

Eternal Gift is a way to put that together. You build a page online with your photos, a message or a letter, a song and stickers, and they open it from a link or a QR code. The midnight text still has its place. The page is for the year that didn't fit in it.