Religious Christmas card messages: 18 about the manger, not the mall

The box says forty cards. The stamps are on the kitchen table, the address list is open on your laptop, and you have written Merry Christmas, love, the Millers eleven times. You want the cards to say something about why you celebrate. You just don't want them to read like a tract.

Below are 18 religious Christmas card messages to copy and make your own: short ones for the long list, messages with a Bible verse, notes for family, for your church family, for someone grieving this year, and two longer reflections. Every one is about the birth of Jesus. None of them is trying to win an argument.

The Christmas card has a birth year. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, Henry Cole, its founding director, sent the first one in 1843. He asked the artist John Callcott Horsley to illustrate it and had a printer make a thousand copies, with space for a handwritten greeting. They sold for a shilling each, which was expensive at the time, and the venture flopped. The design carried a double message the museum calls celebration and charity.

The handwritten line was the point then, and it still is. A printed verse inside the card is fine. What your recipient remembers is the sentence under it in your handwriting.

For the neighbors, the coworkers, the cousins you see twice a year. Two lines is plenty.

• Merry Christmas. May the peace the angels announced that night find its way to your front door.
• God came small, in a manger, without a sound. Here's to noticing the small things in the year ahead. Merry Christmas.
• Celebrating the birth of Jesus and grateful for you. Merry Christmas from our house to yours.
• You're in our prayers this Christmas. Wishing you a peaceful, joy-filled season.

One verse per card, with the reference, followed by a line of your own. These are from the King James Version. If your recipient reads a different translation, copy the same verse from theirs.

• “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11) This day, not someday. May that good news meet you right where you are. Merry Christmas.
• “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5) I know this year had some long nights. Praying the light of Christmas reaches every corner of your home.
• “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” (Luke 2:14) That's our prayer for your family this year: peace around the table and good will in every room.
• “They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” (Matthew 1:23) God with us in the hospital waiting room, the airport line and the crowded kitchen. Merry Christmas.

With family you can be specific, because you lived the same year. There are more family messages, religious and not, in Christmas messages for family.

• We prayed together more this year, even if half of it was over FaceTime. May Jesus be the guest of honor at our table this Christmas. Love you all.
• Mom and Dad, I first heard the story of the manger in your living room. Thank you for teaching me what we celebrate before you taught me how to unwrap anything. Merry Christmas.
• May our table look a little like that night in Bethlehem: not much fuss, the people we love close by, and God right in the middle. Merry Christmas.

Thank them for something specific: the meal train, the choir rehearsals, the visit when you were sick.

• To our church family: thank you for every meal train, hospital visit and folding chair you set up this year. May Christmas renew our faith and our will to serve. Merry Christmas.
• Pastor, thank you for the sermons and for the Tuesday you sat with us at the hospital. Praying you get a few quiet hours with your own family this Christmas.
• You prayed for me when I couldn't pray for myself. This Christmas I'm praying for you, for your home and for the year ahead.

For a friend who lost someone this year, December can be the hardest month. Don't explain the loss and skip everything happens for a reason. Tell them you remember and that you're close.

• I know this is your first Christmas without your mom. I don't have words that fix it. I'll be praying for you on Christmas Eve, and you can call me at any hour.
• Christmas is the story of a God who came close to people who were hurting. May you feel that nearness this season, and ours too. We love you.

The nativity scene on your mantel started without any figures at all. In his letter Admirabile signum, Pope Francis recounts that fifteen days before Christmas in 1223, Francis of Assisi asked for a manger with hay, an ox and a donkey in the Italian town of Greccio. There were no statues: the people who came made up the scene.

That's a good picture to start a reflection. These two run longer, for a card with room, a photo caption or a few words before dinner.

• Before the dinner and the gifts and the rush, there was a family with no room at the inn. Christmas starts with someone making room. This year, let's make some too, at the table and on the calendar, for anyone spending the holidays alone. Merry Christmas.
• The first people to hear the news weren't kings. They were shepherds in a field, at night, on the job. If you're working this Christmas, in the ER, on the road or behind a counter, this one is for you: good news has a way of finding the people who stay awake looking after others. Merry Christmas.

One verse is enough

A short verse with its reference gets read. Three in a row turns a card into a Sunday school handout.

Know your list

Catholic, Protestant, another faith or none: a message of peace and light reaches everyone. Save the prayer-heavy ones for people who pray.

Use their words

Mass or service, parish or church, the Christ Child or Jesus. Write it the way they would say it.

Leave doctrine out

A Christmas card offers a blessing. It's not the place to settle a theological debate or ask why someone stopped going to church.

If you're still stuck on the sentence under the verse, the formula of one memory plus one wish is in what to write in a Christmas card. For friends who'd rather get something without a religious tone, there are options in Christmas messages for friends. And if the card is going with a gift, see meaningful Christmas gifts.

Some messages want pictures: Grandma's nativity set that comes out every December, the kids in bathrobes at the Christmas pageant, the whole family after the Christmas Eve service. Eternal Gift was made for that. You build a page online with the photos, your message or a longer letter with the verse you chose, a song from YouTube (a hymn, a carol) and stickers, then send it by link or QR code.