Please, Oh please, for the love of all of your English teachers throughout your schooling…

Get out the draft of this year’s Christmas letter (yes, go ahead, right now). I need you to comb through it. 

I’m about to give you a few must-checks. These are coming straight outta my 3rd grade classroom. Throwback to the days that I used to bring my 8- and 9-year-olds in real close and whisper to them that if they could master these things, they’d sound and write smarter than most grown adults. 

It was a good hook, but *shoulder shrug* not wrong. 

Now please, I don’t have time to be politically correct here. I know that these cards and letters probably need to be sent out this week. So don’t get all offended. If you’ve made these mistakes, let’s all laugh it off and let it go. Then fix it.

This year we’re all going to sound smarter.

1. Merry Christmas from the Johnson’s Johnsons!! 

This one is going to send me to my grave. 

As I look at my screen right now Google has it underlined in red, trying to tell me I’ve got it wrong. If I picked up my phone to type this in, it would auto-correct, and I’d probably hit send before even noticing.

“The Johnsons” refers to a group of people (your family) wishing you a Merry Christmas. I’m just pluralizing my family’s surname. We do not own anything in the context of this sentence. 

Please, please, please be smarter than your technology.

2. 2020s….(probably) NOT…2020’s

If you’re going to write something like:

→ The 2020s started off pretty wild.

First of all, you wouldn’t be wrong. Second of all, you don’t need an apostrophe. Again (see the first mistake), 2020 doesn’t own anything here. (And let’s not give it any more reason to own our lives than it already has.)

You can use an apostrophe if you want to say:

→ 2020’s big surprise was that it never ended.

In this situation, 2020 owns the big surprise.

See the difference?

Still confused?

3. Apostrophes in General

This will probably someday be a post all on its own. But I just have to give you a quick and classic 3rd-grade lesson. (Remember, we’re not getting offended here.)

I was pretty proud of this little trick I’d teach my kiddos, and I have yet to find a situation where it doesn’t work. (That being said, please comment or message me if you find a rule-breaker.)

Look at the picture above. (Yes, I used my kids’ schoolroom whiteboard for this handy visual.)

Notice how the apostrophe has been turned into a [dotted] circle? That circle tells you who in the sentence owns the [fill in the blank]. 

Using the teacher’s/teachers’ example from the picture, you’d ask yourself: Who owns the [house]?

• the teacher → circle teacher → that dotted circle (between r & s) is where your apostrophe goes
• the teachers → circle teachers → that dotted circle (after s) is where your apostrophe goes

So the “rule” is to ask yourself at the end of any sentence that you think might need an apostrophe:

Ok, as I typed this, I remembered a rule breaker: its. 

See the breakdown of commonly misused homophones in the section below. 

4. Common Homophone Mistakes

You probably know these. I feel like teachers spend a lot of time on them. But as a refresher (and a quick cheat sheet), I’ll include them anyway.

• they’re/there/their
  • they’re = they + are
  • there = a location or a statement of being (“There are 6 table settings.”)
  • their = shows ownership (instead of saying they’s) 😉
• it’s/its
  • it’s = it + is
  • its = shows “it” owns something (This is the one rule-breaker I mentioned above…If you were to ask, “Who owns [fill in the blank]?”, you wouldn’t put an apostrophe in this one at all. Clear as mud?)
• your/you’re
  • your = shows you own something (instead of saying you’s)
  • you’re = you + are

5. // Slash //

I don’t know why I’ve all of a sudden started seeing this mistake everywhere. In fact, I even had to Google it to see if the rules had changed or if I’d been wrong my whole life.

But Grammarly agreed with me, so I’m going with that. 

If including a slash, you’re most likely using it to indicate “or”. In this case, you don’t put a space on either side of the slash. Yes, I’m serious…you basically just make one big long compound word that’s separated by a slash. 

→ Our Thanksgiving/Christmas season was filled with new traditions.

6. Good vs. Well

And can we please start to fix this in our speaking as well please?

If you’re doing something, you’re doing it well…not good.

→ Well = adverb

• The kids did well in school.
• We all feel well.
• The holiday season went as well as it could have.
• I hope this card finds you well.

If you’re describing something, it’s good…not well.

→ Good = adjective

• Have a good break!
• The pumpkin pie was so good. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Writing!!

At the risk of getting too wound up, I’d better leave it at that. You can definitely expect more Grammar PSA posts in the future, but this should get your 2021 Christmas cards and letters looking sharp.

So now, may you get your cards sent on time with no mistakes. May you enjoy all that this holiday season has to offer. May you recognize all that this past year has brought us. And may you soak up all the time with your loved ones. 

Merry Christmas!