90 Happy Birthday Wishes for Your Grandson (From a Grandfather Who Got It Wrong a Few Times First)

Name the one thing he is into this year

The card most grandfathers send fails the same quiet way. It is written to a grandson in general, the cheerful boy in the photograph, and so it could go to any lad in any family. "You have grown into such a fine young man" is true and it is also wallpaper. He has read a version of it on every card since he could read, and by the age of eleven he can spot it from across the room and put it straight back in the envelope.

So before you pick a line from below, name the one thing that is his this year. The keyboard he rebuilt. The football team he has gone quiet and loyal about. The drumming you can hear from the bottom of the stairs. The driving test he failed and then failed again. The strong opinion he held at the last family dinner and would not back down on. The girl, or the boy, he has mentioned twice and then changed the subject. Whatever it is, write that down first. That detail is the whole card. The rest is wrapping paper around it.

One thing I have learned, mostly by getting it wrong: a specific card outlives a sentimental one. For years I wrote "we are so proud of you" and signed it, and I have no idea what happened to any of those cards. The keyboard line is on his wall. He knows I was watching. That, in the end, is all a grandson wants from the old man at the other end of the table.

For the little-kid grandson (toddler to about nine)

At this age a parent reads the card out loud, but he notices at once if you name the thing he has been hauling round the house for months. Keep the lines short. Name the obsession. Put the new number in big, because at this age the number is the entire event and he will tell strangers about it for a fortnight.

• Happy birthday to my favourite six-year-old, who can name more dinosaurs than I can name streets in this town.
• SEVEN. You are SEVEN now. Where did six go, and who approved this. Happy birthday, wee man.
• Happy birthday to the grandson who has worn the same dinosaur jumper since Christmas and shows no sign of stopping. Long may it fit.
• You are five today and you have told the whole family you are getting a digger. We will see what your mother says. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. I hope there is cake and I hope you get the biggest corner, because your grandad has put in a word for you.
• You told me your favourite animal is now "a shark, but the friendly kind". Happy birthday, I have been thinking about it all week.
• Happy birthday to the grandson who builds a tower, knocks it down, and builds it taller. Keep doing exactly that.
• Eight years old and already the loudest in the back of the car on the way to mine. Happy birthday, never turn it down.
• Happy birthday, son. You give the best running hugs of anyone who comes through my door, and that includes the dog when his dinner is late.
• Cake, fizzy juice, and staying up far too late at Grandad's. Happy birthday, that is the arrangement and I intend to honour it.

For the tween or teen grandson

The hardest age to write for. He is too old for the sweet wee-boy card and not yet ready for the grown-up one, and he can smell forced warmth from the far end of the garden. Drop the "watching you grow" line. Point at the music, the game, the sport, the thing he made, the opinion he dug his heels in on at the last family lunch. He does not want telling he is growing up. He wants to be seen as the person he already is, which at thirteen feels like the only thing in the world.

• Happy birthday to the grandson who took a keyboard apart on my kitchen table to make it quieter, and would not be talked out of it.
• Fourteen years old and you already argue a point cleaner than your dad, which is saying something. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. Whoever told you those trainers were too much was wrong, and I have quietly started noticing my own.
• You are thirteen and you have made it clear you want no fuss, so here is a small, dignified, deniable fuss. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday to the grandson whose music I do not understand and whose taste I have learned to trust without question.
• Sixteen suits you, and I am not only saying that because grandfathers are obliged to. Happy birthday.
• You built that thing for the school project and your dad sent me the photo, and it has been on my fridge since. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. I know you are not telling the family the half of this year, and that is allowed. I am a phone call away and I do not gossip.
• You at fifteen are a more interesting man than I was at fifty, and I have had a great deal longer to work on it. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday to the grandson who has firm opinions about how I make tea and is, it pains me to say, correct.

For the college-age or young-adult grandson

He is somewhere in his late teens or twenties now, away at university or out the far side of it, sorting the first job, the first flat, the first heartbreak that actually knocks the wind out of him. The card can sound like one grown man to another, with the long family thread running underneath. Skip "so proud of you" if you can manage it. Name the actual thing he has done this year.

• Happy birthday to the grandson who turned into a working man with a payslip and strong views on his commute while my back was turned.
• Nineteen. Old enough to vote and to fix my phone, which you do without sighing, mostly. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. The way you handled that mess with your flatmate this term was the most level-headed thing I have heard from anyone in this family in months.
• You moved to a city I have been to once, for a job none of us can quite explain at dinner, and you have made it look easy. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday to the grandson I now ring for advice, which is not the way I was led to believe this would go.
• Twenty-three and already steadier than half the men I have worked beside. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. You told me at Christmas you did not know what came next, and I want it on record that not knowing at twenty-two is the right answer.
• You have built a whole life I only see in photographs, and from here it looks like a good one. Happy birthday from your grandad.
• Happy birthday, son. You are the age I was when none of it made sense, and most of it sorted itself out in the end. You are doing fine.
• I have watched you go from the boy I taught to skim stones into one of the most decent men in this family. Happy birthday, and I do not say that for the sake of it.

For the grown grandson with his own home

This one has a kitchen of his own now, perhaps a partner, perhaps small ones running about. The card shifts again. You are no longer the one keeping an eye on him. The line that lands is the one that recognises the man he has made of himself, with one detail you have actually noticed about his life as it stands.

• Happy birthday to the grandson whose roast, I will admit it out loud, has overtaken mine.
• You have made a home I am always glad to be driven to, and the kettle is on before my coat is off. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. Watching you raise your own, with more patience than I ever found, is the strangest and best part of getting old.
• You have built the kind of life I hoped for you and could not have pictured. Happy birthday, son.
• Happy birthday to the grandson who rings me on a Sunday whether or not there is news, which is the kindest habit anyone keeps with me.
• Your shed is better organised than mine ever was and you know it. Happy birthday, and bring the good drill next time.
• Happy birthday. You have turned into the one the rest of the family rings when something goes wrong, and you took that on without anyone asking.
• I am proud of the home you keep, the work you do, and the way you still find an afternoon for your old grandad. Happy birthday.

For a step-grandson or grandson-in-law

This is the grandson who came to you later, when a child of yours married, or when two families joined into one. You may have known him two years or twenty, but you both know you came in partway through the story. The card works best when it admits that honestly, rather than performing a lifetime of closeness that was not there. One real shared thing beats a grand sweeping line every time.

• Happy birthday to the grandson I gained the day of the wedding, who has been decent to me at every gathering since.
• You did not have to make room for an old man in your family, and you did it without a second thought. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. I am the grandad who turned up later, which means I get all the good bits and none of the nappy stories. A fine deal.
• You walked into this family the year you married our girl and you have steadied the whole table ever since. Happy birthday.
• We share no blood and a remarkable number of opinions about how to run a barbecue, which suits me down to the ground. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday to the grandson who showed me, kindly, how the new shape of this family works, that first awkward Christmas.
• I am glad beyond saying that you joined us. The girl chose well, and so did the rest of us. Happy birthday.

For a great-grandson

This is the small one a generation further down, the child of a grandchild, who calls you something even grander than grandad. You knew his parent as a baby, and here is a brand new baby altogether. The card carries a sweetness with a lot of years folded into it. Keep it plain. Name something that proves you have been watching from the comfortable chair in the corner.

• Happy birthday to my great-grandson, who is four today and already the boss of every room he walks into. Long may it last.
• I held your dad when he was the size you were last year, and you are exactly the same brand of trouble. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday, wee one. Your old great-grandad watches you from his chair and is delighted by every single thing you do, including the noisy parts.
• You are five and you have announced you will be a firefighter and a dinosaur, in that order. The family is taking notes. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday from your great-grandad, who keeps every photo your parents send and cannot quite believe how tall you have got.
• You have known me your whole life, which is short, and I have loved you the whole of it, which feels long and good. Happy birthday.

For a grandson who lives far away

When he is in another city or another country, the distance becomes part of the bond whether you wanted it to or not. The card can pay a little of it back. Mention the time difference, the years between visits, the video calls where he goes quiet because there is a screen in the way. A line about the geography lands harder than a flat "we miss you".

• Happy birthday across however many hours sit between us this year. I think of you far more often than I manage to ring.
• You are twenty today and on the other side of the world from your old grandad. Happy birthday, I want the full account at the next family do.
• Happy birthday. The clocks are never on our side, but you always find the right hour to call, and it makes my whole week.
• I have not had you at my table in two years and I still know exactly how you would answer most of what I am thinking. Happy birthday from a long way off.
• Happy birthday to the grandson I send a card to every year and visit nowhere near enough. I am working on the second part.
• The journey out to you is long and the welcome at the end of it is always worth it. Happy birthday, keep the kettle handy.
• Happy birthday. I am writing this from a kitchen several hours behind yours, and you are the reason I know the difference without counting.

When he is having a hard year

Sometimes the birthday lands in the middle of a parents' split, a long illness, a stretch where life has gone quietly wrong in ways the family does not all know about. Turn the brightness down. Keep it short. A line that says you are paying attention, without making him explain himself, is the one he reads twice in the dark.

• Happy birthday, son. I know this has been a heavy year. The card is small and what sits behind it is not.
• Happy birthday. Whatever has come at you this year, you are still the grandson this whole family is firmly on the side of.
• This year asked far more of you than it had any right to. Today asks nothing at all. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday. I will not pretend it has been an ordinary year. I love you, and the phone is always answered.
• I know it was a year you did not choose. Happy birthday, and you are managing better than you give yourself credit for.

Funny birthday wishes for a grandson

Grandfather humour stays fond. You are the grandad, so the teasing is gentle and aimed at the running joke the two of you already keep, whatever it is: the catchphrase, the thing he always does at your house, his verdict on your cooking, the way he replies to a text four days later.

• Happy birthday to the grandson who has corrected my pronunciation of three game names since Easter and is keeping count.
• Another year of you explaining to me, slowly, that I have left the caps lock on again. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday, son. Many happy returns of you beating me at a game you then have to explain the rules of.
• You have eaten round the edge of every dinner I have cooked you for fourteen years. Happy birthday, may this be the year of the vegetable.
• Happy birthday to the grandson who replies to a text in roughly the time it takes me to grow a tomato.
• Another year of you thrashing your grandad at FIFA and pretending you went easy. Happy birthday, we are on to you.
• Happy birthday. You called my jacket "a bold choice", and I am still wearing it, and I am still your favourite, so we are square.
• You at twenty have stronger views on training shoes than anyone I have met in seven decades. Happy birthday.
• Happy birthday to the grandson who took apart one of my gadgets to "improve" it. The toaster has never been the same. Leave the radio alone.
• Another year of you running rings round the lot of us at the family quiz. Happy birthday, ease off at Christmas.

Short birthday wishes for a grandson

For a text on the morning of, a line in the family group, or your name with a few words next to it on a card a dozen people have already signed. Two true words in your own voice beat a long borrowed sentence. Aim for a dozen words or fewer and let one real detail carry the lot.

• Happy birthday, son. Mean it.
• Seven years old. Unbelievable. Happy birthday.
• Have cake. Have seconds. Grandad insists.
• Many happy returns, son. Call you Sunday.
• Happy birthday. Still my favourite. Tell no one.
• The good chair is yours when you visit. Happy birthday.
• Save me the corner piece. See you soon.
• Happy birthday. Proud of you, plainly and entirely.

For a longer paragraph in the card

If you have the room and the relationship for it, a short paragraph reads beautifully from a grandfather, because you have the one thing the rest of the family does not yet have: the long view. The shape that works is plain. One specific memory, one thing you have noticed about who he is now, one honest line about what you hope for him. No flourish. Here is the kind of thing I mean.

• My boy, I have watched you since the afternoon you arrived, red-faced and furious, and I have never once been bored of you. This year you took on a hard thing and carried it without letting it harden you, which most men twice your age cannot manage. I do not need much for my own birthdays any more. I needed to see you turn into this. Happy birthday, and come and sit in my kitchen soon.
• Happy birthday, son. I am old enough now to know which things last, and you are one of them. I have kept the cards, the daft drawings, a fishing float you whittled badly the summer you were ten and would not let me help. You have grown into exactly the man that ten-year-old promised. I hope this year is gentler than the last. Whatever it brings, your grandad is in your corner and always was.

When you and he are not close

Not every grandfather and grandson are close, and a card that fakes it reads worse than a card that does not try. Distance happens. Families fracture, or you simply never got the chances. If that is where you are, write short and write true. A plain, warm, unforced line is worth more than a paragraph performing a closeness neither of you would recognise.

• Happy birthday. I hope this is a kind year for you, truly.
• Thinking of you on your birthday, and wishing you well. Your grandad.
• Happy birthday. We have not seen enough of each other, and I would like to put that right. The door is open whenever you want it.
• Many happy returns. I am proud of you from where I am, and I mean it.

Lines for a card from all the grandparents or the whole family

For a milestone year, an eighteenth, a twenty-first, a thirtieth, the card almost always wants more than one hand on it. These work when each line is short and unmistakably from one person. He should read your line and know it is grandad without checking the foot of the card. "Love from Grandad and Gran" is true and reads exactly like the printed greeting inside the card.

• From the grandad whose toaster you improved: happy birthday, and please do not improve anything else of mine this year.
• From your gran, who has lost to you at cards since you were nine and has finally made her peace with it: happy birthday.
• Happy birthday from both of us, who have watched you become someone we would choose to know even if we were not related.

Turn it into a group card

A grandson's birthday is one of the natural group cards in a family, because he sits where the generations meet. A line from his grandad reads well beside a line from his parents, beside a scribble from a small cousin, beside a note from an aunt three hundred miles away. A group birthday card online sorts the logistics without a single phone call: one link goes to the family group, everyone writes their own line in their own time, and it lands on the morning of with the whole family's voices on it instead of one signature in the corner. You can create a card online in a few minutes, add an old photograph for the cover (the one of him at four asleep in your wheelbarrow is the one to use), and set the delivery for breakfast in his time zone. If you would rather send something quieter from just yourself, a free online birthday card goes in seconds.

For the longer note from you alone, the guide to what to write in a birthday card walks through the simple four-part shape. The companion wishes for granddaughter guide takes this same approach from the other side of the family; the wishes for grandpa set covers a grandchild writing up to you instead of down; and the pillar guide to what to write in a birthday card has the wider toolkit for any birthday in the family.

The keyboard, since I started there. Reuben left one of those tiny springs behind on my kitchen table last summer, the size of a grain of rice, and I found it weeks later under the fruit bowl when I was looking for the gas bill. I should have thrown it out. Instead it has lived in the little dish by the bread bin ever since, the one my wife Elspeth used to keep her rings in before her knuckles got too sore to wear them, and I cannot tell you why I have kept a single spring from a machine I do not understand. I expect when I am gone someone will tip that dish into a bin bag and never know. Elspeth would have laughed at me for it. She kept a button off my demob suit in her purse for fifty years and never once explained that either, so I suppose I came by the habit honestly.