The Weltchek Weekly

A new year—at last!—is just two weeks away and with it lots of opportunities to wish one another well. Putting those wishes to paper, however, can be tricky. Is it Best wishes for a happy and healthy new year or Best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year? If you chose the first version, you chose correctly. When you’re referring to the new year as in the next 12 months, new year always goes in lowercase.

When you’re referring to the holiday itself, capitalize all the words, as in, Last New Year’s Eve, we partied till dawn and spent New Year’s Day regretting it. As of now, our plans for this New Year’s are more moderate—but who knows?

When you write Happy New Year as a standalone greeting, capitalize all the words. The same goes for Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays.

And that’s a wrap for 2020. I suspect I speak for most everybody when I say, “Here’s to an infinitely better new year!”