Christmas Eve Toast: What to Say, With 6 Examples

The short version: a Christmas Eve toast is smaller than a Christmas Day toast. Keep it to 30 to 60 seconds, make it about tonight (the arrivals, the waiting, the thing your family always does on the Eve), and raise a glass with a short line that calls back to it. Six examples are below, for a big Eve dinner, a quiet one, a toast before a service, the late toast after the kids are asleep, hosting the in-laws, and a guest who just got in.

Christmas Eve is a strange night to toast. Nothing has happened yet. The presents are wrapped, or mostly. Half the family is in the kitchen and the other half is somewhere over Ohio. The big meal might be tonight or it might be tomorrow, depending on whose family you ask.

That's actually what makes a good Christmas Eve toast. It's about the waiting, the arrivals, and the people who are here before the day starts. You don't have to wrap up the year or thank everyone who cooked. You just have to say something true about tonight.

If you're looking for the main dinner toast, the Christmas toast guide covers Christmas Day. This page is only about the night before.

How Christmas Eve is different from Christmas Day

The Eve means very different things in different houses, so start by working out which kind of night yours is.

• The big dinner. For some families, Christmas Eve is the main event. The long table, the good dishes, everyone dressed up. Christmas Day is pajamas and leftovers. If that's your family, the Eve toast is the big one, and you can give it the full minute.
• The quiet night. For others, the Eve is soup, a movie, and a few people on the couch. The crowd comes tomorrow. A toast here should be short and low-key, more like a few sentences with a glass in your hand than a speech.
• The night before a service. Plenty of families eat early and head out to an evening or midnight service. The toast has to fit between dessert and the car, so it needs to be very short.
• Arrival night. Christmas Eve is often when the in-laws land, the college kids get home, and the cousins pull in at nine with a dog nobody was told about. The toast becomes a welcome.
• The late hour. Once the kids are asleep and the stockings are filled, the grown-ups sometimes get a glass of something and a quiet ten minutes by the tree. That's a different toast entirely, and often the best one of the whole holiday.

Your Eve might be two or three of these at once. Pick the one that matters most tonight and toast that.

Who gives it, and when

One thing to watch: the person hosting Christmas Eve is often not the person hosting Christmas Day. If the Eve is at your sister's and the Day is at your parents', your sister gets first word tonight. Let her have it.

A simple shape for a Christmas Eve toast

1. Name the night. One line that says what kind of Eve this is. "Half of you were on a plane four hours ago." "The kids are finally down." "Coats are on, so this is quick."
2. One detail from tonight. Something that is only true this evening. The text that said "landed." The roll of wrapping paper that ran out. The thing your family does every Eve without fail.
3. Turn it toward the people here. One or two sentences about what that detail says about them.
4. Glasses up. A short last line that calls back to your detail, then stop.

The difference from a Christmas Day toast is mostly step two. On the Eve, reach for something about waiting or arriving, not something about the whole year. The year can wait until tomorrow, or until New Year's Eve.

The grown-ups' toast, after the kids are asleep

This is the one people don't plan, and it's often the one they remember. The kids are in bed. Somebody has just finished assembling something with too many parts. The stockings are full and the cookies left out have been dealt with.

A few things make it work:

• Keep your voice down. Literally. Part of the charm is that it's whispered.
• It can be funnier than the dinner toast. Nobody under twelve is listening, so you can tell the story about the gift that almost got found, or what Santa's handwriting looks like this year.
• It can also be softer. This is often when people say the thing about their own parents doing this for them. That lands well at midnight with five people in the room. It might not land at a table of twenty.
• Don't let it turn into a debrief. If the toast becomes a list of what still needs doing in the morning, you've lost it. Save the logistics for the kitchen.

Hosting the other side of the family on the Eve

In a lot of couples, one family gets the Eve and the other gets the Day. Some years that flips, and you end up hosting your partner's parents on a night they've spent in their own house for forty years.

That's worth naming in the toast. They gave something up to be at your table: their own tree, their own routine, possibly their own church. A sentence that says you know that goes a long way.

• Thank them for the trip, plainly. Not for "joining us," which sounds like a dinner party. For coming.
• Don't compare the families' traditions. Not even as a joke about how your side does it better. They're already a little homesick tonight.
• If they have a tradition, borrow it. If your mother-in-law always reads something on Christmas Eve, ask her to, and toast after. That does more than anything you could say.
• Keep your partner close. If it's their family, it often helps for them to say the first line and hand it to you.

A short version for before a service

If part of the family is heading to an evening or midnight service, the toast happens in the kitchen with keys already out. You have about 20 seconds.

• Say it standing up, by the door.
• One detail, one glass. A sip of whatever is open.
• Include whoever is staying home. Not everybody goes, and the ones staying with the dishes and the dog should be toasted too.
• Don't make it about the service itself. The people going know why they're going. The ones staying don't need it explained.

What to skip on Christmas Eve

• The Christmas Day toast, early. If you're also speaking tomorrow, don't use your best detail tonight.
• Presents. Don't toast to what's under the tree, and don't hint about what anyone is getting. Someone always guesses.
• Who isn't here yet. If a flight is delayed, say you'll toast them again when they get in. Don't spend the toast on the airline. For someone who won't be coming at all this year, the Christmas toast after a loss guide covers what to say.
• Spoilers for the kids. Anything about Santa, the elf, or "what we stayed up doing" waits until they're asleep.
• A long grace if you're also saying one tomorrow. If your family prays on the Eve, keep it short and save the fuller one for dinner on the Day. The Christmas grace page has a few short ones.
• Card lines. "Twas the night before Christmas," "the magic of the season," and anything about all being well. Your own detail will do more. The cliché detector will catch the worn-out ones in a draft.

6 Christmas Eve toasts you can adapt

Names are placeholders. Timings assume about 130 words a minute. Keep the shape and swap your own detail in.

For the host, before a big Christmas Eve dinner with kids at the table (about 50 seconds)

Before we eat, a quick one, because I've been told by two people under ten that the faster we eat, the faster tomorrow comes.

On the first of December, Tobiah and Leontyne made a paper chain out of construction paper and taped it over the kitchen doorway. Twenty-five links. Every morning one of them tore a link off, and there were negotiations about whose turn it was that I won't go into.

There's one link left. It's green, it's a little crooked, and it comes off in the morning.

For the grown-ups, I'll just say the waiting is my favorite part now. Everyone's here, nothing's opened, and nobody has to drive anywhere. Raise whatever's in front of you. To all of you, and to the last link.

Why it works: the kids' paper chain is the waiting made visible, and the host turns it into a line for the grown-ups without taking it away from the kids.

For a host welcoming the in-laws on arrival night (about 55 seconds)

Just a quick one, since half of you were on a plane four hours ago.

I've spent a lot of Christmas Eves in the cell phone lot at the airport. If you've never been, it's a parking lot full of people sitting in dark cars, staring at their phones, waiting for one word. Tonight I was out there an hour and ten minutes with a thermos, and I didn't mind once.

Isidore, Verna, this is the first year you've come to us instead of us coming to you. I know that was a lot to ask. You left your own tree and your own kitchen to sleep in our guest room, which also has a treadmill in it.

We're very glad you're here. Glasses up, everybody. To Isidore and Verna, and to the word "landed."

Why it works: it thanks the in-laws for what they gave up to come, and the airport wait turns into the warmest line of the night.

For anyone, right before leaving for a service (about 25 seconds)

Coats are on, so this is the quick version.

For as long as I can remember, we've left forty minutes early to get the same pew, the one at the back by the radiator. The view is terrible. Nobody cares. It's warm, and it's ours.

One sip before we go. To everyone in this kitchen, whether you're coming or staying with the dishes, and to the radiator pew.

Why it works: one family habit says everything, and the last line makes sure the people staying home are in it too.

For the grown-ups, once the kids are asleep (about 55 seconds)

Okay. They're down. Keep it quiet.

The third stair from the top in this house has creaked since before any of us were born. When we were little, Mom and Dad stepped over it every Christmas Eve carrying presents, and we lay upstairs listening for it. We never heard it once. For years I honestly thought they could fly.

Tonight I watched Ozias step over it with a bike on his shoulder. Then Rosalba, with an armload of stockings. Then Dad, at seventy-four, just to show he still could.

So I guess the job just gets handed down the stairs. Glasses up, quietly. To Mom and Dad, who showed us how, and to the third stair.

Why it works: one creaky stair links the speaker's childhood to tonight, and the room gets to feel the handoff without anyone saying it out loud.

For a guest who got in on Christmas Eve (about 45 seconds)

I got in at four this afternoon, so first, thank you to Vashti and Obadiah for picking me up, and for not asking why I went straight to the guest room and shut the door.

I was wrapping. I'd packed the presents and forgotten the paper. The only roll in your hall closet was birthday paper with balloons on it that says "Another Year Older" about forty times. So under your tree tonight are six presents that wish you a happy birthday.

You've had me every Christmas Eve since I moved across the country, and every year you make it feel like I live here. To Vashti and Obadiah, and many happy returns.

Why it works: the joke is on the speaker's own bad packing, and the birthday paper sets up a last line that thanks the hosts and gets a laugh at the same time.

For a small, quiet Christmas Eve, just a few people (about 45 seconds)

It's just the three of us this year, which means I'm allowed to toast from the couch.

Every Christmas Eve since 1996 we've watched the same movie off the same tape. Dad recorded it from the TV and stopped about four minutes too late, so the ending runs straight into a football game. Somebody always fumbles. We have never once turned it off before the fumble.

The VCR is older than Leocadia's kids, and it might not make it to next year. But tonight it works, we're all here, and the popcorn is mostly not burned.

To the tape, to the fumble, and to the two of you.

Why it works: a quiet Eve doesn't need a big speech, so it toasts one silly ritual the three of them share and lets that stand for the rest.

Getting the timing right

• Before dinner, wait for the last arrival. If someone is ten minutes out, wait. A welcome toast with the guest of honor still on the highway doesn't work.
• Before a service, toast early. Do it while people are still at the table, not in the hall with the car running.
• After the kids are asleep, give it twenty minutes. Long enough that you're sure they're asleep, and not so long that half the grown-ups have gone to bed too.
• Don't stack toasts. If someone gave a toast at dinner, the late one should be a different person, or a different detail.

If you'd like to hear how yours sounds before the night, Rehearsal Mode will time it and tell you your pace, or you can try it on six guests at a holiday table in The Room. For a toast built from your own family's details, the free toast writer will draft one, and there are more Christmas examples here.