Apostrophes Don’t Go with Last Names on a Christmas Card. Here’s Why.

Tempted to add one of those fancy apostrophes to your last name on your Christmas card this year?

Don’t. It’s wrong. And it may embarrass you in front of your friends and family at the very time you’re trying to impress them the most.

Why? Because apostrophes are punctuation marks designed to show possession—as in, when something belongs to something else, like a snowman’s pipe or a reindeer’s nose. Apostrophes are not used to make words plural.

On Christmas cards, when we write, “Love, The Thompsons,” or “From the Hendersons,” we are simply using a plural form of our last name. We’re just plural people—more than one person from a family with the same last name—wishing a merry Christmas. There’s no possession there. And there shouldn’t be an apostrophe, either. No exceptions.

Really? No exceptions? Ever?

That’s right. On Christmas cards (or any other greeting), it just doesn’t really ever make sense to write your last name with a possession. Oh, sure, it’s technically possible, if you wrote something off-the-wall, like “Merry Christmas from the Bakers’ family cat,” but it wouldn’t be common. (And, even then, you would make the last name plural first, then add the possessive apostrophe after the ‘s.’)

In English, to make a word plural, we almost always just add an ‘s’ or an ‘es.’ We don’t ever (ever!) add apostrophes to make something plural. Let’s repeat the rule: APOSTROPHES ARE USED FOR POSSESSION, NOT TO MAKE SOMETHING PLURAL.

(To be fair, there actually is one super tiny little exception to this rule—when making a single letter plural, as in “there are four lower-case z’s in ‘razzmatazz’”—you have to use an apostrophe. But that’s a quirky little detour we can avoid thinking about for now.)

If I were to write, for example, “I just ate three cookies with my grandma,” there is no need to add an apostrophe on cookies. It’s just a plural form of cookie. The phrase, “I just ate three cookie’s with my grandma” not only looks weird, it doesn’t make any sense; it’s odd and it’s confusing and…that’s why it’s grammatically incorrect.

If you think about it, adding an apostrophe to make something plural is completely nonsensical. We already have the ‘s’—why add something else? This rule, hard as it may be to believe for some, applies to all nouns—even proper nouns like last names. If we have neighbors next door, and their last name is Jackson, then we live next door to the Jacksons—more than one person (plural) with the name of Jackson. There is nothing possessive about the sentence, “We live next door to the Jacksons.”

Nor is there anything possessive about the sentence, “The Jacksons want to wish you a merry Christmas.”

It really doesn’t matter what your last name is—when you say “from” or “love” or “sincerely” and follow it by your last name, you’re just making it plural, with no apostrophe:

• Love, the Nelsons
• From the Westons
• Yours Truly, the Clarks

Granted…if you are writing something that is NOT a greeting card, there are, indeed, times when an apostrophe can be added to a last name, so long as you’re making it possessive (“that’s the Harrisons’ Ferrari” or “I can see Jane Hardy’s yellow shoes”); Christmas cards and other greetings just pretty much never use last names that way.

And one other caveat: there are, of course, some last names that actually have apostrophes IN THE LAST NAME ITSELF—like O’Neil or Ma’afala. Those apostrophes stay!! Just don’t add an extra apostrophe at the end. 🙂

But…what if my last name ends with an ‘s’?

It doesn’t matter. Whether your name ends in an ‘s’ or not, the same rule applies—if you’re not making your last name possessive, then there is no apostrophe.

When we make other words that end in ‘s’ plural we usually add an ‘es’—like with the word “dress” (“I just bought seventeen dresses“). The same is true for words that end in ‘x,’ ‘ch,’ ‘sh,’ or ‘z’: foxes, witches, dishes, or buzzes. Adding an apostrophe to any of those words where there is no possession is just as wrong as with any other word. And the same applies to last names.

If your last name is Curtis, for example (which is my mother’s maiden name and my first given name, so I’m ultra familiar with this one!), you must add an ‘es’ to make the last name plural: “Merry Christmas from the Curtises.” Other ‘s’- ‘ch’- ‘sh’- ‘x’- or ‘z’-ending last names do the same:

• Love, the Joneses
• From the Hatches
• Yours Truly, the Walshes
• With Love, the Hendrixes
• Best wishes, the Martinezes

Now…if you don’t like how that looks (believe me, “Curtises” looks really strange to me), you can re-word your Christmas card. Just say something like, “Love, the Curtis Family.” Problem solved. Just don’t add that apostrophe!

But…what about those ‘th’ or ‘y’ last names? Or…’ys’???

By now, I hope you’re realizing that I’m going to say, “It doesn’t matter; the same rule applies.” As always, if your last name isn’t being used to show possession, it should not use an apostrophe.

Often in English, we change ‘y’-ending words to ‘ies’—as in “bunny” to “bunnies” or “company” to “companies”—which may seem confusing for last names. Remember, though: we don’t always change the ‘y’ to ‘ies’—like in “days” or “toys.” For proper nouns like last names, you will never change the spelling of your last name to an ‘ies.’ You just keep the ‘y’ and add an s.

So…if your last name is “May,” then it’s just “Mays.” But even if your last name is a common English word, like, say, “Penny” or “Goldsmith,” you’ll just add an ‘s’ at the end: “Merry Christmas from the Pennys” or “Happy Holidays from the Goldsmiths.” Don’t change the spelling of your last name and don’t add an apostrophe.

If your last name feels really confusing, ending with a ‘ys,’ like in “Mays” or “Humphreys,” don’t panic—the rule is always the same. For your last name, it ends in ‘s,’ so just add the ‘es’: “Merry Christmas from the Mayses” or “Merry Christmas from the Humphreyses.” (Again, if you don’t like how that looks or sounds, just say, “Merry Christmas from the Humphreys Family.”

Why Does It Matter?

Well, call me a Scrooge, but the Christmas season just seems a little brighter if there is correct punctuation hanging on my fridge. I’m sure all your neighbors and family feel the same. But even if you don’t have any friends or relatives that are English teachers or punctuation snobs, it’s gotta feel good just knowing that you did it correctly, right? And that alone should make your own Christmas season a little cheerier. 🙂