Oh, come all ye saints and sinners – weigh-in on this. Since the 12 days of Christmas are a mere four weeks away, I’ll get straight to the point. I wrestled with this issue last year, and the year before that; in fact for the last 16 years. It’s time to put this baby to bed, and it isn’t a nativity scene.
The question is how to sign the Christmas cards when you are an unmarried couple.
If the friends and relatives to whom you send Christmas cards do not personally know your significant cohabitating other, should you include the SO’s name on the cards when you sign them, or just write your name and pretend that your boo doesn’t exist? Or do you write both names on all cards and let the recipients who don’t know him (or of him) ask themselves silly rhetorical questions like, “When did she remarry?” or “Did I miss something?” (Note – if sending a Christmas card to a former wanted-to-be boyfriend who won’t give up, include your SO’s name, for sure.)
In previous years, my practice has been as follows. If I am sending a card to someone who knows us both, then I will include both names on the card. But cards sent to people who only know me (for instance, former co-worker friends or acquaintances) will usually just have my signature. If I’m sending a card, for him, to one of his friends or relatives and they don’t know me, then his signature will be the only one on the card. Make sense?
I realize that the way an unmarried couple chooses to sign a card (for Christmas, birthdays, condolence, or any other occasion) is a personal decision, usually made by the person writing the cards. Still, I’ve been curious for a long time to know if there is a protocol on this matter. Miss Manners is there such a thing as card signature etiquette?
This year, before I begin sending Christmas cards, I decided to do some research. I discovered that through the decades, mainly since the sixties, other unmarried couples have also pondered the question of how should the name (or names) be signed beneath the message inside the card. There is also another issue. How should the envelope be addressed to a couple living out of wedlock?
Here is what I’ve learned:
The simple rule of thumb is to write the couple’s names alphabetically on separate lines and join their names with “and,” such as
Mr. Ahmal Jackson and
Ms. Shenika Jones
123 Shacking Up Lane
Sin City, Anyplace 00666
On the other hand, I would propose that the order of the names be determined by which person you know best. If you are a close friend or relative to Shenika, then you would address the envelope showing her name first and vice versa for Ahmal.
Ms. Shenika Jones and
Mr. Ahmal Jackson
123 Shacking Up Lane
Sin City, Anyplace 00666
If my mother were alive, I know how she would answer the question of how to sign the card. She’d say, “The couple should get married.”
Then, the couple would reply “Been there. Done that. Thank you, Ma’am.”
The query about how to sign the card is not a prompt for saints to offer a biblical lesson about living in sin; nor is it a signal for a Shakespearean rephrase about marriage: To do or not to do. That is not the question. The question is how to sign the darn card.
My research subsequently produced the answer to my question. And at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, I’ll say that it also brings to mind one of my favorite quotes, “I’d rather be known in life as an honest sinner than a lying hypocrite.”
Sleep baby.