Christmas speeches

By: Susan Dugdale | Last modified: 10-03-2019 | First published: 12-01-2009

- Short, Simple and Sincere

Christmas speeches are often expected as part of workplace celebrations, like the office Christmas party. Or they may be included in a family and friends get together on Christmas day.

And, yes, it can be really tricky pulling a good one together.

Let's face it.

By the time the season of merriness is upon us,  being hey-ho, cheerily, merry about preparing a Christmas speech can feel like a step too far.  One twinkly fairy light too many.

However you can do this. You can find the right words, and make the speech you give a gift by keeping it short, simple and sincere. In other words: stunningly, genuinely awesome.

Here's how ...

See these 7 steps to Christmas speech happiness in action

Check a completed Christmas speech outline prepared using this template to see how it works before you begin. It may help make the steps easier for you to follow.

Ready? Review the seven steps. Then get yourself a sheet of paper, a pen and, start.

 7 step Christmas speech template

1. Who is your speech for?

Is it family, friends, work colleagues, club members ...?

What do they want or expect to hear? What would delight them? Is it stories about the events of the year shared by everybody, the company triumphs or challenges...? 

Does the occasion suit light-hearted humor or is a solemn tone more appropriate?

Knowing exactly who the audience is will help you choose the tone and content of the speech.

For example, it's unlikely your workplace colleagues would think it appropriate if you were overly flippant or familiar and regaled them with tales of your five year old son's exploits. Or that your family would be thrilled to hear how sales sunk or soared in the third quarter.  

2. What is the purpose of your speech?

Are you aiming to inspire people?
Do you wish to unite them?
Perhaps you want to thank them?
Maybe you want them to laugh and relax.

And perhaps what you want to achieve is a combination of all those suggestions.

Being clear about why you making the speech will guide your choice of theme, tone and content.

What's certain is you're not deliberately setting out to bore them by rambling on and on, then on some more. 

3. What theme is right for your audience?

A theme is a thread to hang your speech on. It unites it by linking all the pieces, (opening, body and conclusion), together. 

To keep your speech simple choose one from the six theme suggestions you'll find when you get further down the page.

4. Organize or outline the body of your speech

It's easier to begin with the body or middle of your speech because this is where you express your main points or ideas of your chosen theme. You will add the conclusion and beginning later.

Depending on how long you want to speak for, choose 1 to 3 main points fitting your audience, purpose and theme. 

Start with the most important first. For each point you make, give one or two examples to illustrate it. When you give your speech you'll link the points with transitions or bridges to get smoothly from one idea to the next.

(If you need more explanation of transitions you'll find it here on this page: how to write a speech.)

The pattern or template you're using looks like this:

• Point One: Main idea - Example, example
  Transition or link to ...
  
• Point Two: Idea - Example, example
  Transition or link to ...
  
• Point Three: Idea - Example, example
  Transition or link to conclusion of your Christmas speech.
  
  

5. Organize or outline the conclusion

The ending of you speech should leave your audience full of hope - looking forward to coming events, united, and with a sense of gratitude.

To finish well, reinforce your theme, summarize your main points and end with strong statement or maybe a quotation from those below.  What's ideal is an ending  your audience will remember.

6. Organize or outline the introduction

The beginning of your speech:

• Acknowledges and welcomes guests to the occasion. If you have guests of honor, name them.
  
• Introduces the theme of your speech.
  
• Gives a broad overview of the main points
  
• And links or transitions into the body of the speech - your most important and first point.
  
  

7. Where is the speech being delivered?

The venue or setting can change how you deliver it. If it's an intimate family setting around the dinner table you won't need either a lectern on a raised stage or a microphone but in a hall in order to be seen and heard they might be absolutely necessary.

Thinking ahead will help you make sure you have gathered together everything you need to give your speech well. You've got the mike, and tested it. You've rehearsed standing on the dais and the sight lines are OK. Everyone will see you. You've made sure the lighting is OK. If you're using notes, you've practiced with them to make sure you can read them easily.

6 suitable themes for Christmas speeches

1. Gratitude

Be specific about what you are expressing gratitude for, and why.  Are you grateful for health, family, workmates, friendship, kindness, favorable events, good times together, challenges, food, your country, the world we share ...

2. Giving

This could be about the joy of giving:  giving time, giving thought, giving a helping hand, giving gifts, giving donations ...

3. Hope

Hope is feeling positive about looking ahead. You could talk about feeling hopeful regarding new beginnings, plans for the future, resolutions, nurturing creativity or ideas, sowing seeds ...

4. Remembrance

Remembrance is way of honoring or respecting the past. It could be recollections of people or events and their significance, highlights of the previous year's events ...

5. Family, company or organization

What unites the group of people you are giving this speech to? Are you family? Do you share the same workplace or club? Use this theme to talk about significant events; births, deaths, triumphs, and challenges, or the importance of love, belonging, continuity, history, values, hopes ...

6. Unity

Use this theme to emphasize cooperation, community, the achievements made possible through working together, embracing and celebrating differences, humanity - love, compassion and understanding ...

*About The Speech Builder - this is a very nifty app that "builds" personalized speeches. Use it and you'll have an original Christmas speech quite quickly. Find out more.

Tips for delivering your speech

1. If you need to, write your outline on numbered and labeled, (Introduction, Body, Conclusion), cards.
   (If you're unsure what these are and how they could help you, see this page for how to make and use cue cards effectively.)
   
   
2. Time the delivery of your speech to fit harmoniously into the occasion's program to avoid the embarrassment of going too long, and committing that ultimate sin, keeping people from what they want to do.
     
   
3. Practice/rehearse the speech before delivery to your audience and have a few trusted friends or family members listen to it. Get their feedback on content, tone and length (2-3 minutes is good!) Make any changes necessary.
   
   
4. Save the glass of Christmas cheer to have after your speech rather than before it.
   
   
5. Schedule your speech for the beginning of the occasion.
   
   
6. Smile. This is a festive we-are-having-a-good-time-speech. You need to look the part. 

Have you seen the sample speech yet?

Don't miss out on the sample Christmas Speech outline prepared using these 7 steps.
You'll see how easy it will be to adapt the template for your own use!

Quotations for Christmas speeches

Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.
Mary Ellen Chase

If there is no joyous way to give a festive gift, give love away.

Unknown

Heap on the wood! The wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Sir Walter Scott

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the word seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.
Taylor Caldwell

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.
Peg Bracken

Christmas Day is a day of joy and charity. May God make you very rich in both.
Phillips Brooks

Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
Oren Arnold

The way you spend Christmas is far more important than how much.
Henry David Thoreau

The means to gain happiness is to throw out from oneself, like a spider, in all directions an adhesive web of love, and to catch in it all that comes.
Leo Tolstoy

It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you...yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brother and offer him your hand.
Mother Teresa

He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find Christmas under a tree.
Unknown

Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'.
Bing Crosby

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
Burton Hillis

Christmas happens
everywhere
every time
someone reaches out
to touch another life with love
Carol Duerksen

Slightly jaundiced Christmas quotations

From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.

Katharine Whitehorn

Christmas is forced upon a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press; on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred.
George Bernard Shaw

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when my mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.
Shirley Temple

Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven.
W. C. Fields

Christmas is a time when everybody wants his past forgotten and his present remembered. What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.
Phyllis Diller

I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.
Bernard Manning

Go well writing and delivering your Christmas Speeches!
May they inspire and give joy.

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PS. 

Remember the speech builder is there if you need it. It's an excellent solution if you're finding writing a speech tricky. You'll get a good Christmas speech in minutes.