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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays: Are Holiday Greetings Capitalized?

Neha Karve

Updated November 23, 2023

If a holiday greeting is part of a larger sentence, capitalize names of holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving. Don’t capitalize adjectives like happy and merry or common nouns like the word holidays, except at the start of a sentence.

Thus, in the Christmas greeting, you always capitalize the word Christmas, since it is the name of a holiday and a proper noun, but capitalize the adjectives merry or happy only if they appear at the start of a greeting or a sentence.

But in happy holidays, neither word requires capitalization, unless at the start of a sentence or a greeting.

Describing wishing someone

When you describe wishing someone well for the holidays, capitalize only proper nouns (i.e., names of holidays).

Standalone greetings

Style personal, standalone greetings as you like. In a greeting card or a personal message, feel free to capitalize adjectives like happy and merry to sound cheery and festive.

In a formal context (e.g., in a formal email to a client), follow the general rule of capitalizing only proper nouns or words at the start of a sentence or a greeting.

Happy New Year

In the New Year greeting—happy new year—you can either capitalize or lowercase the words new and year. Both styles are acceptable since the phrase new year can be treated as the name of a holiday or as a common noun (see Merriam-Webster and Oxford). Either way, don’t capitalize the adjective happy when you describe the act of wishing someone a happy new year.