New Year Message for Your Best Friend

A good New Year message for your best friend is short, names something you lived through together this year, and says what you want for the next one. It doesn't need to be a letter: at midnight everyone is toasting, kissing or hugging half the party, and what gets read is what fits on one screen. Here are 30 original messages sorted by mood, and at the end, a tip on when to send them.

Short, for midnight

Happy New Year, my person. Another year with you is all I asked for.

New year, same best friend. Wouldn't trade you.

Here's to finally doing all the things we keep saying we'll do.

Happy New Year. The best part of last year was you.

Another year of you on speed dial. Lucky me.

Cheers to health, a little more money, and a lot more coffee together.

Sweet

This year I learned that no matter what happens, if I call, you pick up. Thank you for that. Happy New Year.

I don't know what this year will bring, but I know you'll be close by. That's enough for me.

Looking back at the year, every good moment has one thing in common: you were there.

Thank you for staying another year. That's not a small thing.

I hope your year is as good as the friend you are. So, a really, really good one.

May this year give you back what you give everyone else.

Funny

My New Year's resolution is the same as always: stay your friend even though you make me late for everything.

Happy New Year to the only person who knows all my secrets and hasn't used them against me. Yet.

This is the year we go to the gym. Well, the year we talk about going to the gym, which is almost the same thing.

New year, same gossip. Call you tomorrow.

Thanks for putting up with me for a whole year. You deserve a medal.

My wish for the year: that the group chat finally agrees on a single plan.

For a friend who's far away

For the friend in another city or another country, toasting with other people tonight:

We're toasting in different houses tonight, but we're toasting to the same thing.

At midnight I'm raising my glass in your direction.

The distance disappears for a second at midnight, every year. Happy New Year.

This is the year we finally see each other. You pick the date, I'll bring the coffee.

The miles don't count. You do. Happy New Year.

I miss you at every party, but this one most of all.

After a hard year

For the friend whose year didn't go well. No poster quotes, no "everything happens for a reason":

This year was hard and you made it through. That's already a lot. I'm here for the next one.

I won't tell you next year will be better. I'll tell you that you won't go through it alone.

It's over. Whatever comes next, we face it together.

Happy New Year, even if this one wasn't. I love you the same in the good years and the bad.

If this year took things from you, I hope the next one brings back some peace. And if it doesn't, you have me.

The year is closing. My door isn't. Come by anytime.

When to send it

At midnight on the dot, messages get lost among hundreds of "Happy New Year"s and the network slows down. Two better ideas:

• Send it a little before midnight, so it's the last thing she reads this year.
• Or send it the morning of January 1, when everyone is awake and quiet. That's when it actually gets read.

And since she's your best friend, don't just text: send a voice note. Your voice at midnight beats any line on this page.

If you want the words to stay

We make prints of Capy and Bara, two capybara best friends, with lines like the one in the photo: Capy, calm, under the words "It's not the same without you." Add her name, pick the color, and collect it with Same Day Pickup at a store near you, or have it mailed free to any address in the 50 states. See the prints.

For Christmas, here's what to write in a Christmas card for your best friend.