The holidays are coming, bringing along a blizzard of emails from businesses, brands, and loved ones.
Some of the most welcome emails during this season are those from your employer announcing the office holiday schedule and other opportunities to celebrate the festivities.
But if you’re the one sending those holiday emails on behalf of your business, you probably want it to be as quick and painless as possible. After all, there's a lot to do at the end of the year, from finalizing projects to performance reporting (not to mention planning family dinners and buying gifts).
We can help with these quick best practices for writing a holiday announcement email to employees. Plus, we’ll give you templates to copy, paste, and customize for a seamless send.
A holiday email should be concise and focused on a single message. Your employees likely have a full inbox to wade through, and if the message is too long, they might put it off—or skim it and miss critical details.
If you have a few different topics to cover, consider breaking them up into multiple emails with clear subject lines. For example, send one email to announce office closures for the holidays and another to share end-of-year insights. (You’ll find templates for each email below.)
Another benefit of short, focused emails is that it’s easier for employees to refer back to them to find the information they need. For example, they can do a quick inbox search, like “holiday schedule,” to find the right message.
As you plan your emails, consider who the target audience is. After all, not every message applies to every employee, and segmenting your recipients prevents you from inundating the entire staff with irrelevant information.
For example, the holiday schedule and office closures interest all employees (though you may need to segment these emails by region if each office has different closure dates). On the other hand, only a few teams will benefit from reading the marketing team’s end-of-year insights.
Internal communications are a great opportunity to reinforce company values. For example, if you value work-life balance for your employees, remind them that the holidays are a time to turn off work notifications, relax, and enjoy time with loved ones.
You can also make the message more powerful and relevant by tying it back to the business’ priorities and goals. For example, if you send an end-of-year recap, connect each insight to the corresponding business goal or priority to show employees the impact of their work.
Now that we’ve covered best practices, let’s get into what you really want. Below, you’ll find holiday email templates to copy, paste, personalize, and send.
And while these samples give you a head start, infuse them with your company’s voice and align them with your internal style guide.
Employees will likely keep an eye out for this email and refer back to it when they need a reminder. Make it easy for them by keeping these emails concise, focusing on when the office will be closed for a public holiday or a company-wide break.
Subject line: Office closure for the holidays
Body: Seasons greetings, [collective noun for your employees, e.g., Twilions]!
The [company name] offices will be closed in [regions] from [date] to [date] for the holidays. You can find the full calendar of office closures here [link].
We hope you enjoy this time to rest, recharge, and spend quality time with loved ones.
Managers and leaders often send this message to their teams before a holiday break. It’s a great opportunity to step away from the spreadsheets and meetings to share warm holiday wishes and appreciation with your team. In this spirit of gratitude during the holidays, thank your employees for their contributions over the past year.
Subject line: Wishing you all happy holidays!
Body: Dear [team name, e.g., Customer Support Team],
Before we take a well-deserved holiday break, I wanted to thank you all for your dedicated work this year. We’ve accomplished many goals as a team, learned valuable lessons, and had fun along the way. One of my personal highlights was [a win or memory you shared as a team].
I’m excited to continue working together in the new year. Until then, enjoy the holidays with your loved ones. I can’t wait to hear about your holiday break!
The end of the year is the perfect time to reflect on everything your business accomplished and share valuable insights with your team. Depending on the company size, this could be a company-wide message from the CEO or more focused emails from each team leader (or both).
This template is more bare bones as the details will depend on the work your team does and how you measure success. So take time to flesh it out with relevant insights and performance metrics.
Body: Hi, [team name or collective noun for your employees, e.g., Twilions]!
I know you’ve all been hard at work this past year, and I wanted to share some insight into how your contributions have helped us toward our goals for [year].
Below is a summary of the goals/key performance indicators (KPIs) we focused on this year and the results of our work together. These insights come from [tool or database you use to track performance], and you can find more details here [link to further resources].
[Goal or project #1]
[Brief summary]
[Results or KPIs]
[Team members who worked on this project]
[What worked and what we can improve]
[What’s next]
[Goal or project #2]
[Brief summary]
[Results or KPIs]
[Team members who worked on this project]
[What worked and what we can improve]
[What’s next]
[Goal or project #3]
[Brief summary]
[Results or KPIs]
[Team members who worked on this project]
[What worked and what we can improve]
[What’s next]
I want to thank each one of you for your contributions to these initiatives. In addition to the office holidays, I encourage you all to take a break to recharge and enjoy the season. I look forward to continuing our work together when we return.
If you work with contractors regularly, take the time to thank them for their work in the past year and wish them a happy holiday season.
Subject line: Thank you and happy holidays!
Body: Dear [individual or team name],
Before we head out for a holiday break, I wanted to thank you for your work with [company name] this past year. It’s been a pleasure working with you, and your contribution has made a significant impact on our business. [Share an insight or result from a specific project.]
I look forward to continuing our partnership next year. Have a wonderful holiday and enjoy some time with loved ones!
Now that you have holiday emails to employees drafted, it’s time to start planning your customer-facing campaigns.
But where to begin? A great first step is to brush up on the basics. Our Holiday Sending 101 guide gets you started with preparing your email program for your holiday sends.
Then, check out our holiday email best practices, from design to personalization, to start designing your most festive emails yet.
Finally, if you need an email service provider to help streamline your sends, learn more about Twilio SendGrid’s Marketing Campaigns. We have your back with everything from email templates to automation to analytics. Try it for free today.
