Chinese New Year and Spring Festival (Chūn Jié)

Chinese New Year, Spring Festival, Chūn Jié. The longest of the three, fifteen days from New Year's Eve to the Lantern Festival. The two greetings most people meet first are Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (happy new year, the everyday one) and Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái (wishing you prosperity, the one you'll hear in markets and on red envelopes). Both are welcome on a card. A small note on the zodiac: name the actual animal of the year if you know it, and skip it if you don't. Better quiet than guessing.

  • "Xīn Nián Kuài Lè."
  • "Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái."
  • "Xīn Nián Kuài Lè! Wishing you and your family a Spring Festival full of dumplings, fireworks, and at least one good nap on the third day."
  • "Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái! May this Year of the Dragon bring your family health, prosperity, and that promotion you've been quietly working toward."
  • "Happy Chūn Jié to the Lin family. Hoping the reunion dinner goes long and the kids fall asleep before the firecrackers start."
  • "恭喜发财. May your red envelope distribution be generous and strategic in equal measure this year."
  • "Wishing you a Spring Festival as warm as the steamed buns and as loud as the fireworks at midnight. Xīn Nián Kuài Lè."
  • "To my favourite person who makes the best nián gāo. Happy Lunar New Year. May this year be as sweet as your sticky rice cake."
  • "Xīn Nián Kuài Lè! Fifteen days of celebrating means I get to wish you a happy new year fourteen more times. I plan to use every one."
  • "May your year ahead be full of good fortune, your family table full of people, and your phone full of group-chat photos. Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái!"
  • "Spring Festival wishes from across the time zones. May the dragon (or rabbit, or tiger, whichever this year is) be on your side."
  • "Xīn Nián Kuài Lè to the whole family. Save me one piece of fish, for surplus, not for me, I know the rule."
  • "Gōng Xǐ Fā Cái. Eat the longevity noodles slowly this year. The whole strand counts."
  • "Happy Spring Festival. May the new year be quieter on the days you need quiet and loud on the days you don't."

Vietnamese Tết

Vietnamese Lunar New Year is Tết, short for Tết Nguyên Đán. The greeting that goes on most cards and red envelopes (lì xì) is Chúc Mừng Năm Mới, happy new year. Tết has its own foods (bánh chưng, the square sticky-rice cake), its own flowers (peach blossom in the north, apricot in the south), and its own three-day arc of celebration. If you're writing to elders, the traditional layered well-wish is Chúc bác sức khỏe và sống lâu trăm tuổi, wishing you health and a hundred years. For peers, Chúc Mừng Năm Mới by itself is right.

  • "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới."
  • "Happy Tết."
  • "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới! Wishing the Nguyễn family a Tết full of bánh chưng, peach blossoms, and the right amount of lì xì for the kids."
  • "Happy Tết to you and your family. May the new year bring health, luck, and one of those long lazy mornings on day two."
  • "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới. May your year ahead be as full of good news as your kitchen is of bánh chưng right now."
  • "Sending you a Tết wish from across the world. Save me a slice of bánh chưng and tell your mum I said hello."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year to my favourite Tết host. Last year's dinner is still the food I think about most. Chúc Mừng Năm Mới."
  • "Wishing you a year of an tâm (peace of mind), thành công (success), and at least one quiet morning where nobody calls to wish you anything."
  • "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới! May the year ahead be kinder than the last and as warm as your mum's kitchen during Tết."
  • "Happy Tết. The kind with apricot blossoms on the table, kids in new clothes, and the whole house smelling like sticky rice."
  • "To the Trần family on Tết. Thank you for last year's invitation. I'm still talking about the food. Chúc Mừng Năm Mới to all of you."
  • "Chúc bác sức khỏe và sống lâu trăm tuổi. Wishing you, ông bà, a year of strong health and a hundred more like it."
  • "Happy Tết, dì. Tell mum the bánh chưng you sent us last year ruined every other version for me."
  • "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới. Eat slowly on the first day. The food keeps coming."

Korean Seollal

Korean Lunar New Year is Seollal (설날), and the greeting is Saehae bok mani badeuseyo (새해 복 많이 받으세요), please receive many blessings in the new year. Seollal is family-first, anchored by tteokguk, rice cake soup. Eating a bowl is said to add a year to your age, which is the kind of small cultural fact worth knowing if you're signing a card for a Korean friend. For elders during sebae (the New Year bow), the more formal form is Saehae bok mani badeusipsio; for everyone else, the standard badeuseyo form is the one.

  • "새해 복 많이 받으세요."
  • "Happy Seollal."
  • "새해 복 많이 받으세요! Wishing the Kim family a Seollal full of tteokguk, sebae from the kids, and one full day of nobody having to drive anywhere."
  • "Saehae bok mani badeuseyo! May this year bring good health, good news, and at least three bowls of tteokguk for everyone who wants them."
  • "Happy Seollal to you and your family. Hope the new year is gentler than the last and that the kids' sebae stays cute for one more year."
  • "새해 복 많이 받으세요. May the Year of the Rabbit (or whichever it is) treat you better than last year's did."
  • "Wishing you a Seollal full of family, tteokguk, and the kind of quiet that only happens after everyone finally goes to sleep."
  • "Saehae bok mani badeuseyo. May you receive more blessings than you can fit in one year, and may a few of them spill into the next."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year to my favourite Korean family. Last year's tteokguk added a year to my age and I'm not mad about it. 새해 복 많이 받으세요!"
  • "새해 복 많이 받으세요 to the whole family, including the cousin who beat me at yutnori last year. Rematch this Seollal."
  • "Sending Seollal wishes across the time zones. May your year ahead be full of good food, easier travel, and at least one bowl of your mum's tteokguk."
  • "새해 복 많이 받으세요, halmeoni. Wishing you a year of strong health, slow afternoons, and grandkids who actually pick up the phone."
  • "Happy Seollal, hyeong. Tell ajumma the manduguk last year was the best she's ever made. The kimchi too."
  • "Saehae bok mani badeuseyo. Eat the tteokguk slowly. Year on the way."

For workplace cards and mixed groups (when you don't know which tradition)

This is the section to use when you genuinely don't know which Lunar New Year a coworker celebrates, when a card is going to several people across different traditions, or when you want to wish a team well without singling out one culture. The umbrella term is "Lunar New Year." Avoid "Chinese New Year" as the generic label; many people celebrating aren't Chinese, and the broader name reads as considered, not less. Keep things warm, brief, and a touch low-key. The recipient may want a card from the team that says nice things, not a deep cultural exchange. For the broader December-and-January register, our piece on holiday card messages covers the same problem across the wider calendar.

  • "Happy Lunar New Year."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year! Wishing you a year ahead with more good news, less bad traffic, and a few really good meals along the way."
  • "Sending Lunar New Year wishes your way. May this year bring health, prosperity, and the right kind of luck, the quiet, steady kind."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year to you and your family. Hope the celebrations are everything you wanted and a little bit of what you needed."
  • "Wishing you a Lunar New Year full of good food, family time, and at least one full night of sleep at some point in the fifteen days."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year! May the year of [zodiac animal] be kinder than the last and a touch more interesting than the one before."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year! Hope your celebrations this week are exactly what you need them to be. Looking forward to seeing you back on Monday."
  • "Wishing you a wonderful Lunar New Year with your family. Don't think about email. We've got everything covered until you're back."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year from the whole team. May the year ahead bring you the kind of small daily wins that add up to a really good year."
  • "Sending Lunar New Year wishes from the office. Hope the reunion dinner is everything, and that the trip home is the easy kind."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year, Mei. Thank you for everything you brought to this team last year. Hoping this year holds even more good for you."
  • "Sending you all the best for Lunar New Year. The team misses you already and we will absolutely survive without you for two weeks."

For family, elders, and someone celebrating away from home

Family Lunar New Year cards carry longevity wishes for elders, prosperity wishes for working-age relatives, and the small annual blessings that get repeated every year and somehow never wear out. If you're writing to elders, lead with health and long life. For working-age siblings or cousins, prosperity and good luck are the safe centres. For kids, the red envelope (hóngbāo / lì xì / sebaedon) does most of the talking; your card just needs to be warm. And for someone away from home, name the absence gently and bring some of home through specificity, the food, the named relative, the street. The line I've used unironically four times now, in three different families, is "save me a plate of bánh chưng and call me when the fireworks start." It does the work of three sentences.

  • "To Mum and Dad on Lunar New Year. Health, long life, and a year where the news is mostly good. Thank you for another year of holding everyone together."
  • "Wishing you, Grandma, a year of strong health, easy days, and great-grandkids who actually call you. Happy Lunar New Year. We love you."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year to my favourite grandparents. May you have a year full of small daily comforts and at least one big surprise of the happy kind."
  • "To my in-laws on Lunar New Year. Thank you for welcoming me into the family. The reunion dinner last year was when I really felt like I belonged."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year, little one. Here's your red envelope. Try not to spend it all on snacks. (Spend most of it on snacks.)"
  • "To my parents on Lunar New Year. I know this year was hard. Wishing you a gentler one, with more rest and a lot more good news."
  • "Happy Lunar New Year to my niece and nephew. May this be the year you both finally agree on whose turn it is to do the dishes. (It's both of you.)"
  • "Happy Lunar New Year, wishing I could be at your mum's table this year. Save me a plate of bánh chưng and call me when the fireworks start."
  • "Sending Spring Festival wishes across the ocean. I know it's hard to be away from home this week. The dragon is still on your side."
  • "Happy Seollal, even from far away. Make yourself a bowl of tteokguk, I know it's not the same, but the year still counts."
  • "Lunar New Year from across the time zones. The reunion dinner is happening without you and they all said to tell you they miss you."
  • "Xīn Nián Kuài Lè from your team back home. We will absolutely save you the leftover dumplings (we will absolutely not)."

Turn it into a group card

Lunar New Year is the kind of holiday that asks for many voices on one card. The recipient is often surrounded by family but missed by friends, coworkers, and people scattered across time zones. One signature from the office isn't the same as a wall of names from people who actually know them, each writing in the register that's true to them, some in Chinese, some in Vietnamese, some in Korean, some in plain English, and that mix is what makes the card feel like a real celebration. Below, a small set of short lines for when the space on the card is tight.

  • "Happy Lunar New Year, Mei."
  • "Xīn Nián Kuài Lè! Save me one dumpling."
  • "Chúc Mừng Năm Mới. Eat slowly."
  • "새해 복 많이 받으세요! Tteokguk for me too."

A free group ecard with multiple signers works for this without printing anything or chasing people in person. One link to the team or the family group chat, and each person writes their own line on their own schedule. You can create a card online in a couple of minutes, set the delivery for the morning of the first day, and let people contribute across the fifteen days of the festival. For another cultural holiday in the same register, our Diwali wishes piece uses the same specificity rules, and the Eid wishes guide covers the inclusive-workplace tone where some teammates celebrate and some don't.

One last thing, off-topic and maybe just for me. The 2018 trip I described at the top was also the last time I saw Aunt Hằng before she had her stroke in the autumn of 2019. She still wraps bánh chưng every Tết, slower now, and with my partner's cousin sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor beside her doing most of the folding. The smell of the dong leaves is the same. The conversation about the kids of cousins is the same. The pork fat is, somehow, exactly the same. Most of the things you think you'll lose, you don't. You just have to be in the room.