SignguinA holiday email signature is your normal signature plus one short seasonal line, such as "Happy holidays from all of us at Marlowe Pipeworks", and often a note about your holiday hours. Type the greeting as text rather than putting it in an image, use "Happy holidays" or "Season's greetings" when you write to a mixed audience, and keep it as a second signature so you can switch back to your everyday one on your first working day of the new year.
Below you'll find nearly 40 lines to copy, sorted by who you're writing to, a 2026 calendar for when to switch the holiday version on and off, the setup in Gmail and Outlook, and what to know before you add a banner or a GIF.
What a good holiday email signature looks like
The holiday part sits between your sign-off and your usual details, or directly under them. Everything else stays exactly as it is, so people still recognize you and can still find your phone number.
Kind regards,
Kate
Kate Marlowe
Owner, Marlowe Pipeworks
+1 202 555 0142 · marlowepipeworks.com
Happy holidays from the whole Marlowe Pipeworks team.
Our office is closed December 24 to January 1. Emergency line: +1 202 555 0199
Two lines at most: one greeting, one practical note. Either one alone is fine too.
Holiday email signature lines you can copy
Pick one line per signature. Replace the names in brackets.
For clients and customers
- Happy holidays, and thank you for working with us this year.
- Wishing you a restful holiday season and a strong start to 2027.
- Thank you for trusting [Company] in 2026. Happy holidays from all of us.
- Warm wishes for the holidays from the team at [Company].
- Season's greetings, and see you in the new year.
- Happy holidays. We're grateful for every project you sent our way this year.
For colleagues and your team
- Happy holidays, team. Thanks for carrying 2026 with me.
- Enjoy the break, everyone. See you on January 4.
- Wishing you a proper rest. The spreadsheets will wait.
- Happy holidays from [Department]. Back on Monday, January 4.
For international or multi-faith contacts
"Happy holidays" and "Season's greetings" work almost everywhere because they don't name a specific holiday. They also cover people who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, or nothing at all, and people in the Southern Hemisphere who are heading into summer, not winter.
- Season's greetings and best wishes for the year ahead.
- Wishing you peace and good health this holiday season.
- Best wishes for the end of the year and a good 2027.
- However you celebrate, I hope the season treats you well.
- Warm wishes for the holidays and the new year.
Avoid snow and "winter wonderland" lines with contacts in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or South America. "Wishing you a relaxing break" fits a December beach just as well as a snowed-in office.
Christmas email signature lines
Use these when you know the recipient celebrates Christmas, or when it's your own business's tradition and your audience is local.
- Merry Christmas and a happy new year from [Company].
- Wishing you a merry Christmas and a peaceful break.
- Merry Christmas. Thank you for being part of our year.
- Have a wonderful Christmas, and all the best for 2027.
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa lines
In 2026, Hanukkah runs from sundown on Friday, December 4, to sundown on Saturday, December 12. Kwanzaa runs from December 26 to January 1.
- Happy Hanukkah, and warm wishes for the season.
- Wishing you a bright and happy Hanukkah.
- Happy Kwanzaa and a joyful new year.
Thanksgiving email signature lines
US Thanksgiving is on Thursday, November 26, 2026. Canadian Thanksgiving was on Monday, October 12.
- Happy Thanksgiving. We're thankful for clients like you.
- Wishing you a relaxing Thanksgiving with the people you love.
- Happy Thanksgiving from [Company]. Our office is closed November 26 and 27.
- Thank you for a great year so far. Enjoy the long weekend.
New Year email signature lines
These can start after Christmas and stay into the first week or two of January.
- Happy new year. Looking forward to working together in 2027.
- Wishing you a healthy and successful 2027.
- Here's to a good year ahead. Happy new year from [Company].
- Best wishes for 2027, and thank you for an excellent 2026.
For schools and teachers
- Happy holidays to all our families. School reopens Monday, January 4.
- Wishing our students a restful winter break.
- Happy holidays. I'll reply to emails when school reopens on January 4.
More on everyday school signatures in our teacher email signature guide.
Holiday hours and office closure lines
These are the lines people actually need. December 24, 2026 is a Thursday, and January 1, 2027 is a Friday, so many businesses close for those seven working days and are back on Monday, January 4.
- Our office is closed December 24 to January 1. We'll reply from Monday, January 4.
- Holiday hours: closed December 25 and January 1, open as usual on all other weekdays.
- I'm away from December 23 and back on January 4. For urgent matters, contact [Name] at [email].
- Orders placed after December 18 ship on January 4.
- Our team is on reduced hours December 28 to 31. Expect slower replies.
Looking for a seasonal sign-off instead, like "Warm wishes" or "All the best for the new year"? Our list of email sign-offs covers them, with notes on when each one fits.
"Happy holidays" or "Merry Christmas"?
In business email to people you don't know well, "Happy holidays" is the safe default. It's friendly, it's clearly seasonal, and nobody has to share your traditions to accept it. "Merry Christmas" is not wrong; it's simply narrower. Use it with clients and colleagues you know celebrate it, or in a local business where it's the norm.
A simple test: your signature goes to everyone, including people you've never met, so use the greeting you'd say to a stranger.
When to switch your holiday signature on and off
A holiday signature that's still running in February looks like nobody is minding the shop. Put both dates in your calendar on the day you switch it on.
| Occasion | Date | Switch on | Switch off |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Thanksgiving | Thursday, November 26, 2026 | Monday, November 23 | Monday, November 30 |
| General "happy holidays" line | Throughout December | Monday, December 7, or when you announce your holiday hours | First working day back, e.g. Monday, January 4, 2027 |
| Closure or holiday-hours line | Your closure dates | 2 to 3 weeks before you close | The day you reopen |
| New Year line | Friday, January 1, 2027 | Monday, December 28 | Friday, January 8, or mid-January at the latest |
The closure line is the one to start early. Clients plan around it, and a line that shows up on December 22 helps nobody.
How to add a holiday signature without breaking your normal one
The cleanest approach is a second signature. You keep your everyday signature untouched, create a holiday copy with the extra line, and switch which one is used by default. In January you switch back. Nothing gets lost.
In Gmail on a computer:
- Go to Settings > See all settings > General > Signature.
- Open your current signature, select everything in the editor and copy it.
- Click Create new, name it "Holiday 2026" and paste.
- Type your holiday line below the signature.
- Under Signature defaults, pick "Holiday 2026" for For new emails use (and for replies, if you like).
- Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
In January, set the defaults back to your normal signature and save. Full steps, including replies and extra addresses, are in our Gmail signature guide.
In Outlook: in new Outlook and Outlook on the web, go to Settings > Accounts > Signatures, select Add signature, paste your normal signature, add the line, then choose it for new messages and replies and select Save. In classic Outlook for Windows it's File > Options > Mail > Signatures. Our Outlook signature guide has the steps for every version, including Mac.
On your phone: the Gmail and Outlook apps keep a separate mobile signature. Add the line there too, or let your desktop emails carry the greeting. See the steps for iPhone and the Outlook app.
If you don't have a proper everyday signature yet, sort that out first. Signguin is a free email signature generator: type your work email and it fills in your company logo, colors and contact details, then you install it straight into Gmail or follow the step-by-step paste instructions for Outlook and Apple Mail. After that, the holiday version is one copied signature and one extra line.
Works in Gmail, Outlook & Apple Mail
Keep it light: images, GIFs and deliverability
December is when signatures get heavy: snowflake images, glittery GIFs, a festive team photo. Know this before you add them.
Keep the greeting in text. Classic Outlook for Windows blocks automatic picture downloads by default, according to Microsoft, so many recipients see an empty box instead of your festive image. Text always shows, works with screen readers, and can be read in dark mode. If your greeting lives only in an image, a good share of your contacts will never see it.
Never send an all-image signature. A signature that is one big picture (name, details and greeting all baked in) disappears completely when images are blocked, and it combines badly with short emails. Holiday emails are often short: "Thanks, have a great break!" plus a large image. In a 2014 test by Email on Acid, which ran 64 test emails through 23 spam filters, emails with at least 500 characters of text passed regardless of how many images they had, while very short emails were the ones that got flagged. Modern filters weigh many more signals, such as your sending reputation, but text-first is still the safe habit.
Watch the weight. Keep any banner under about 50 KB and all signature images together under about 100 KB. Images that are embedded in the email, rather than hosted online, are added to every message you send and often show up as attachments named image001.png. Signguin hosts the images in your signature, so they don't travel as attachments.
Be careful with GIFs. Classic Outlook for Windows shows only the first frame of an animated GIF, and Outlook with a Microsoft 365 account plays it 3 times and stops (caniemail). So the first frame has to work on its own. Animated GIFs also tend to be several times heavier than a still image of the same size.
Don't recolor your whole signature. A red and green name and phone number are hard to read, especially in dark mode. Keep your usual colors and let the seasonal line do the work.
Penguins spend the whole winter in a tuxedo and never add tinsel to it. Your signature can take the hint: one seasonal line, then back to business.
A holiday banner, done right
A banner is a wide image under your contact details, usually linked to a page. It can work well in December if you follow the same rules as any signature banner:
- Size: up to 600 px wide and up to 100 px tall on screen, uploaded at up to 1200 x 200 px so it looks sharp on high-resolution screens. Match the width of the rest of your signature. Full numbers are in our email signature size guide.
- File size: under about 50 KB.
- One message: "Happy holidays from all of us" or "Closed December 24 to January 1", not both plus a sale and a snowman. A 600 px banner shrinks to about 60% of its size on a phone, so small text becomes unreadable.
- Alt text that carries the message: for example, "Happy holidays from Marlowe Pipeworks. Closed December 24 to January 1." That's what people see when images are blocked.
- Never the only place for key information. Put closure dates in a text line too.
- Neutral imagery for mixed audiences: winter light, candles or confetti travel better than a single religious symbol.
- Link somewhere useful, such as your holiday hours page, not just your homepage.
- Take it down on time, using the calendar above.
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In Signguin, banners and CTA buttons are part of Premium, a one-time payment rather than a subscription. You upload your own banner image, so a holiday version works the same way, and set the page it links to. On the free plan, the text-line approach above gives you the same message without any image.
Out-of-office plus holiday signature combos
When you're away over the holidays, your automatic reply and your signature are both in the email that goes out, so plan them together.
Gmail: go to Settings > See all settings > General > Vacation responder, select Vacation responder on, set the date range, subject and message, and click Save Changes. You can tick a box to send the reply to your contacts only. Google says your signature shows below the reply, and that the same person normally gets the reply only once, or again if they write after four days while it's still on.
Outlook: in new Outlook and Outlook on the web, open Settings > Accounts > Automatic replies. In classic Outlook for Windows, go to File > Automatic Replies. Tick Send replies only during a time period so it switches itself off, and with a work account you can write a separate reply for people outside your organization. Microsoft's help page doesn't say your signature is added, so paste a short text version of your signature into the reply.
Because Gmail adds your signature under the reply, don't repeat yourself: if the auto-reply says "Happy holidays", the signature doesn't need to say it too. Three combos that work:
Short and warm
Thanks for your email. I'm away for the holidays from December 23 and back on Monday, January 4. I'll reply as soon as I can after that.
Signature: your normal one, plus "Happy holidays from the Marlowe Pipeworks team."
With a backup contact
Our office is closed from December 24 to January 1. For urgent plumbing emergencies, call +1 202 555 0199. For anything else, I'll reply from January 4.
Signature: your normal one, with no extra line. The reply already says everything.
Neutral, for international contacts
Thank you for your message. I'm out of the office until January 4 with limited access to email. Season's greetings, and best wishes for 2027.
Signature: your normal one, with no extra line.
Keep the automatic reply in plain text and skip banners there. It goes to newsletters and strangers too, and a short text reply is all they need.
FAQ
Is it professional to say "Happy holidays" in an email signature?
Yes. "Happy holidays" is a common business greeting in December because it doesn't assume which holiday the reader celebrates. Keep it to one line after your contact details and remove it on your first working day of the new year.
How do I end an email at Christmas?
Use a warm sign-off such as "Warm wishes", "Merry Christmas" (if you know they celebrate) or "All the best for the new year", followed by your name and your normal signature. Our email sign-offs guide has more options and explains when each fits.
When should I change my email signature for the holidays?
Add a holiday-hours line two to three weeks before you close and a greeting from early December (around Monday, December 7 in 2026). Switch back on your first working day, for many offices Monday, January 4, 2027. For US Thanksgiving, run it from November 23 to 30.
What size should a holiday banner for an email signature be?
Up to 600 px wide and 100 px tall on screen, uploaded at up to 1200 x 200 px, and under about 50 KB. Give it alt text that repeats the message, and never put closure dates only in the banner, since many email apps block images until the reader clicks to download them.
Can I use a Christmas GIF in my email signature?
You can, but the first frame must work on its own: classic Outlook for Windows shows only that frame, and Outlook with a Microsoft 365 account plays the animation 3 times and stops. Keep the file small and the greeting in text as well.
Should my out-of-office message include a holiday greeting?
It can, in one short sentence at the end. Put your return date and a backup contact first, since that's what people need. If your email app adds your signature under the reply, as Gmail does, put the greeting in either the reply or the signature, not both.