SMS wishes are the new holiday greeting cards

Have you ever wanted to send a message to someone with just the perfect sentiment, but couldn’t find the words? Or you couldn’t say what you wanted in less than the 160 characters of an SMS message?

Believe it or not, there are many places on the web that offer pre-written messages you can simply cut and paste, then send off to unsuspecting family and friends. If you Google just a little, you’ll find that these already composed messages are gaining ground as a greeting card substitute too.

As someone who always forgets to get the holiday cards in the post, I see the allure of sending holiday greetings via SMS. They’re fast, easy, yet potentially just as heartfelt as whatever is written inside a traditional greeting card. So I looked around and found a few I thought worthy of sharing – and perhaps sending.

The ones I’ve chosen come from SMS4smile.com. It has all kinds of message types from jokes to “adult” messages (I didn’t click on that so don’t ask me what it means). I read through the holiday ones and decided these could be what I send out today on Christmas eve. That’s usually when I realise I’ve forgotten to send out the real cards!

Beware that some of these messages are much longer than 160 characters. This first one is 303, so it would count as two messages by most providers.

May love fill every moment
as your family gathers near,
Beneath the glittering branches
of your Christmas tree this year.
And may those special wishes
that are meant for all of you,
Remind you that you’re close to heart
and loved the whole year through.
Wishes with love for all of you.
Merry Christmas!

—

May the good times and treasures of the present
become the golden memories of tomorrow.
Wish you lots of love, joy and happiness.
MERRY CHRISTMAS

The New Year’s messages were interesting to sort through. I have to say I just didn’t understand many of them (anyone ever have a name in your heart destroyed by insects?), but these two simple ones I thought would be worth sending out to friends. That way they’d get something different than the “HAPPY NEW YEAR” everyone else is going to send!

May happy times
and
warm memories
brighten your New Year.

—

Lets celebrate this
blissful,
cheerful,
colorful New year.
with a smile.
Wish you Happy new year.

If you look at a lot of examples on the SMS4smiles website (or any similar one), you’re likely to find a few that are good and many that well, just aren’t quite right. For example, I corrected one of the Christmas messages from “Marry Christmas” to “Merry Christmas”. Then there are many more that look like they came from Google translate rather than being a carefully crafted holiday wish.

There are some though, that are more than translation or just spelling errors. Here’s one that I think makes the point:

May You Discover How To Ease Your Disturbed,
Overworked Brain Into Manifestation And Consciousness,
So You Can Disengage From Adverse Conditions,
And Modify Your Life
For The Best This Coming Year.
Happy New Year 2015!

I think the author there was trying to convey some meaningful sentiments…I think.

Another thing to note is that some of the websites that offer these pre-written messages also let you send them directly from their website. There are so many reasons you’d never want to do that, especially if you want someone you care about to get the message. Instead, find your perfect message (or one you can correct) and send it using your fastsms account. You’re guaranteed they’ll get your message. And you can even schedule it to arrive when you want. Need to send out a dozen “Happy New Year” messages? Just schedule them in NetMessenger to go out just before or at midnight on the 31st.

Here’s one last holiday greeting straight from fastsms: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sometimes the simplest is still the best.