Good holiday messages for customers fit in one 160-character text, name your business up front, and go only to people who opted in. Each one carries a single clear purpose (a thank-you, a holiday-hours notice, or one offer) and arrives at a reasonable local hour, not on Christmas morning.
This post is a template pack for that. It covers Christmas, New Year, Valentine's Day, Mother's and Father's Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and a neutral "happy holidays" default. Every template is written to stay in one segment. After the templates, we cover the parts that decide whether a holiday campaign helps or hurts: quiet hours, inclusive wording, pairing a greeting with an offer without getting filtered, and scheduling the send.
Why one segment matters
Carriers bill by segment, not by message. A standard SMS segment holds 160 GSM-7 characters. Longer messages split into 153-character pieces. One emoji switches the whole message to unicode, which drops the limit to 70 characters per segment, or 67 when the message runs to more than one segment.
Here is a worked example. Assume a 3,000-contact opted-in list and a 131-character Christmas greeting, sent on Ready Standard at $0.0075/segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee per segment.
- Plain text: 1 segment × 3,000 contacts = 3,000 segments. That is $23 in rate plus 3,000 × $0.0045 in carrier fees.
- Same text plus one 🎄: 131 unicode characters need 2 segments. That makes 6,000 segments, or $45 in rate plus 6,000 × $0.0045.
The emoji doubles the bill and adds nothing a word couldn't do. Replies are billed like sent texts too, so a friendly greeting that gets lots of "thanks, you too!" replies costs a little more. Usually that's money well spent.
Ready swaps curly quotes, long dashes and ellipses for plain characters before sending, so pasting from a word processor won't silently push you into unicode. Emoji are the thing to watch. If you switch on scrubbing or landline validation for an account, each adds $0.003 per segment on top of that math. Both are off by default.
Holiday messages templates, sized for a single text
Every template below stays under 160 characters if your business name is about 12 characters and your link is about 25. Count again after you fill in the brackets, because a long brand name or a full-length URL can push a message into a second segment. Each one ends with an opt-out line. Keep it there.
Happy holidays (the safe default)
Happy holidays from everyone at [Business]! Thank you for being with us this year. We're closed Dec 25 and Jan 1. Reply STOP to opt out
Christmas greetings messages
Send these to a list you know celebrates. Customers who bought Christmas gifts last year are a good example.
Merry Christmas from [Business]! Thanks for a wonderful year. Wishing you and yours a warm, restful holiday. Reply STOP to opt out
[Business]: Merry Christmas! Gift cards are 15% off through Dec 24 at [link]. Thanks for a great year. Reply STOP to opt out
[Business]: Last day to order for Christmas delivery is [date]. Order here: [link] Merry Christmas from our team. Reply STOP to opt out
Hanukkah, Diwali, Lunar New Year, Eid
Happy Hanukkah from [Business]! Wishing you eight bright nights with the people you love. Reply STOP to opt out
[Business] wishes you a happy Diwali and a bright year ahead. Thank you for being part of our community. Reply STOP to opt out
Happy Lunar New Year from [Business]! Wishing you health and good fortune in the year ahead. Reply STOP to opt out
Eid Mubarak from all of us at [Business]. Wishing you and your family peace and joy. Reply STOP to opt out
New Year
Happy New Year from [Business]! Thanks for trusting us this year. Book your first visit of the year: [link] Reply STOP to opt out
Valentine's Day
[Business]: Valentine's Day is Feb 14. Order by Feb 12 for on-time delivery: [link] Reply STOP to opt out
Mother's Day and Father's Day
[Business]: Celebrating someone special this Mother's Day? Gift sets ship free through [date]: [link] Reply STOP to opt out
[Business]: Father's Day is [date]. Order by [date] and we'll have it there in time: [link] Reply STOP to opt out
Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day
[Business]: We're closed Monday for Memorial Day in honor of those who served. Back Tuesday at 9 AM. Reply STOP to opt out
Happy 4th of July from [Business]! We're closed July 4 and back July 5 at 9 AM. Enjoy the holiday. Reply STOP to opt out
[Business]: Closed Monday for Labor Day, open Tuesday at 8 AM. Need us before then? Book at [link] Reply STOP to opt out
Thanksgiving
[Business]: Happy Thanksgiving. We're grateful for customers like you. Closed Thursday, open Friday at 10 AM. Reply STOP to opt out
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are their own planning problem. Volume spikes and offers stack up, so we covered them separately in Black Friday SMS campaign ideas and timing.
Inclusive wording without going bland
You don't have to strip every holiday down to "season's greetings." You do need to match the message to what you actually know about the recipient.
- Default to "happy holidays" for a mixed list. If all you have is a phone number and an opt-in, a neutral greeting can't misfire.
- Use a specific holiday when you have a reason. Past purchases, a sign-up form tied to a holiday promotion, or a community you clearly serve all count. A Diwali greeting from a business whose customers celebrate Diwali reads as attentive, not generic.
- Handle Mother's and Father's Day gently. For some people these days are painful. "Celebrating someone special" works better than "Don't forget Mom!" Consider sending only to contacts who bought gifts last year.
- Don't sell grief. Some readers find "Happy Memorial Day, 30% off!" jarring. A closure notice with a line of respect sits better. Put any sale in a separate, later text, or skip it.
- Avoid assumptions about family, travel or religion in the body copy. "Wishing you a restful break" fits more lives than "Enjoy time with the kids."
Quiet hours: when holiday texts should not go out
The federal TCPA limits telephone solicitations to 8 AM to 9 PM in the recipient's local time. Some state laws set narrower windows, and some restrict solicitation on certain holidays. If you text into multiple states, check those rules. Compliance stays the sender's responsibility.
Ready enforces quiet hours based on the recipient's area. A text that would land outside the permitted local window is held and sent later. It's charged only when it actually sends. That's a backstop for the time-zone mistake: 10 AM Eastern is 7 AM Pacific. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations are held for up to 24 hours until the window opens.
The legal window is the minimum, not the target. A text that's legal at 8:05 AM on December 25 is still an interruption. Some practical rules:
- Send greetings the day before or the morning of, late enough to be polite. For Christmas, December 23 or 24 around midday works better than Christmas morning.
- Send hours notices two or three days ahead, so people can plan around the closure.
- Send offers with deadlines early enough to act on. A "last day for delivery" text is useless at 8 PM on the last day.
For timing by industry, see best time to send SMS marketing texts.
Pairing a greeting with an offer without tripping carrier filters
A registered campaign can still get filtered at the content level, and holiday promos are where it tends to happen. Carriers see a flood of near-identical promotional texts in December and filter hard. The patterns that get flagged are predictable:
- Public link shorteners. Shared shortener domains are heavily abused. Use your own domain or a branded short link.
- Shouty formatting. ALL CAPS, "FREE!!!" and runs of exclamation points read as spam to filters and to people.
- No sender identity. Start with your business name so the recipient knows who it is before they read the offer.
- Content that doesn't match your registration. A promo sent on a campaign registered for appointment reminders is a mismatch. Holiday offers belong on a marketing use case.
- Too many asks. Greeting, offer, link and opt-out is the whole message. Add a second offer and you've written an ad that will probably run to two segments.
If your campaign is approved but texts still vanish, the content is usually why. Your campaign got approved but messages still get filtered walks through the fixes. Ready's AI message writer and spam-filter check can flag risky wording before you send, and our post on AI text message generators covers how to use that without the copy sounding canned.
One rule doesn't bend for the holidays: these texts go only to consented contacts. A seasonal greeting isn't a reason to text a list that never opted in.
Scheduling a holiday campaign in Ready
Work backward from the send date.
Two weeks out: registration and capacity
Marketing texts need a registered brand and campaign. On Ready, registration happens in-app. The monthly cost is $25/mo for registration and $2 per number. The first charge at submit is $25, and most approvals take 2 to 7 days. An unregistered account can send up to 500 texts a month at its normal per-text rate, but a seasonal campaign to a real list will pass that quickly.
Also check throughput. A fresh standard campaign often moves only about 1 to 4 segments per second. At an assumed 2 segments per second, 10,000 segments take roughly 83 minutes. T-Mobile also caps daily volume by brand trust score, starting around 2,000 messages a day at the lowest tier. If your list is bigger than that, split the send across days or look at whether vetting is worth it for your volume.
One week out: list, template and check
- Build the segment from opted-in contacts. Opt-outs propagate across campaigns, so anyone who texted STOP stays excluded.
- Save your message as a reusable template, fill in the brackets and count the characters.
- Run the spam-filter check and remove any emoji you don't need.
Send day
Launch the bulk campaign at your chosen time and let quiet hours handle the time-zone edges. Replies land in the Inbox (and in GoHighLevel for connected accounts). Someone should watch it, because holiday texts get "are you open Saturday?" replies.
If your platform sends through the API instead, the same send is one request to POST /v1/messages/bulk:
curl https://api.tryready.com/v1/messages/bulk \
-H "X-API-Key: <key>" \
-H "Idempotency-Key: 6f1c2b8e-4d1a-4c3e-9b7a-2f5d8e9a0c11" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"to": ["+12125550199", "+15559876543"], "body": "Happy holidays from everyone at Acme! We are closed Dec 25 and Jan 1. Reply STOP to opt out", "consent_attested": true}'Opt-outs, numbers on your Ban list and known landlines are refused up front and not charged. Full details are in the bulk messages docs.
The short version
A good holiday text does one job in one segment. It names you, matches what you know about the recipient, arrives at a decent local hour and keeps the opt-out. Plan the registration and send capacity two weeks out, and keep emoji and shared shortened links out of the copy. If you want to try the templates, sign up and use your first 20 free one-to-one texts to send yourself and a few colleagues each version before the real campaign goes out.
FAQ
How long should a holiday text message be?
Keep it under 160 plain characters so it stays one segment. Fill in your business name and link before counting, and leave room for "Reply STOP to opt out."
Can I use emoji in Christmas greetings messages?
You can, but one emoji switches the message to unicode and cuts each segment to 70 characters. A 131-character greeting with an emoji becomes 2 segments, which doubles the cost of the campaign.
Is it okay to say "Merry Christmas" to all customers?
For a mixed list, "happy holidays" is the safer default. Save holiday-specific greetings for contacts you have a reason to believe celebrate them, such as past seasonal buyers.
What time should I send holiday texts?
Within the legal window (8 AM to 9 PM local under federal rules, narrower in some states), and ideally the day before the holiday around midday. Ready holds texts that would land in a recipient's quiet hours and sends them later. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations are held for up to 24 hours until the window opens.
Do I need 10DLC registration for holiday promotions?
Yes, for any real list. Promotional texts belong on a registered marketing campaign. On Ready that's $25/mo for registration and $2 per number, and most approvals take 2 to 7 days, so register well before the season.