All companies want to put their best foot forward when sending Business Christmas Cards; the cards are chosen carefully, the best card stock, the best embossing and foil but if there are grammatical mistakes, all is ruined. Remember all of the times you receive an email or letter and the grammar is atrocious, your reaction is, “oh my, didn’t they read this before sending?” well proof reading also applies to Corporate Christmas Cards.
Here are five of the most common grammatical mistakes:
- Season’s Greetings is correct not Seasons Greetings – use an apostrophe.
- However, there is no apostrophe after a family’s last name for example, The Wards is correct The Ward’s is not.
- Please write Happy New Year, not Happy New Year’s or Happy New Years, this even sounds wrong.
- The word Christmas should always be capitalized, but the word merry should not be capitalized unless you are starting the line with the greeting “Merry Christmas.” If merry falls in the middle of a sentence, it should not be capitalized.
- When writing a message in your Corporate Christmas Card please remember that it is correct to say “The Board of Directors and I wish you a…” not “The Board of Directors and me wish you a…”
Asking someone to proof read your Business Christmas Cards may seem silly but sending out the “wrong message” is even sillier.
I see that apostrophe all the time in family names, not just on envelopes but on those personalized door mats. If people do it often enough will it ever be accepted?
Seasons greetings is a tricky one! I used to always botch that one.
These tips should pop up when I customize my card online, haha.
The examples you gave here are perfect because they are so often overlooked. I had not thought about the apostrophe in Season’s Greetings. Having another set of eyes proofread your card is a really smart idea! Thank you for this reminder!
Good advice!
The incorrect choice of “me” versus “I” always bothers me, whether in written or spoken. I was taught if you remove the other person from the sentence, go with the one that sounds correct in the sentence: “Johnny and me went to the store.” Take out Johnny and you have “Me went to the store” which makes no sense, so you would use I rather than me!
Grammar is too often forgotten and not enough people pay attention to this anymore. WRONG!
Thanks for offering these reminders!
Thank you for this! Season’s Greetings is a frequent choice for business holiday cards. I’ve seen it a lot without the apostrophe. I’ve also seen Happy New Years, which I hate! I believe it is important for businesses to focus on using proper grammar and spelling in their cards, as they will be taken more seriously and have more integrity with their customers.
@Kelly…I really hope NOT! 🙁
Really great tips !
If you ever want to go down a fun internet rabbit hole, look up Grocer’s Apostrophe. It’s a crazy punctuation phenomenon!