Diwali wishes for a colleague

Six messages you could actually send

Continue writing opens that message in the card with the words already in it, so all that is left is to change a word and send it. The last message is the longest of the six, and it is the only one you have to copy across yourself.

1. Happy Diwali. Hope you get a proper break out of this week rather than a working festival, and that the laptop stays shut for all of it. Thank you for a genuinely good year of working together, and I hope the week is a bright one at home.

   Continue writing with message 1

2. Happy Diwali. Wishing you a full house, a good long break, and an inbox that has the decency to wait until Monday. It's been an easier year for having you on the other side of it, and I don't think I've said so before now.

   Continue writing with message 2

3. Happy Diwali. Hope the days off are restful and the house is as loud as it should be. Thank you for the number of times this year you sorted something out without being asked to. Wishing you and everyone at home a good festival.

   Continue writing with message 3

4. Happy Diwali. Wishing you light, far too much food, and none of the work calls that usually find their way into festival week. Enjoy the break completely, and come back with stories rather than a to-do list waiting to be read out.

   Continue writing with message 4

5. Happy Diwali. Whatever your house does for it, the full four days or one quiet evening, I hope it turns out to be the version you actually wanted. Thanks for making this year of work a good deal less painful than it could have been.

   Continue writing with message 5

6. Happy Diwali. Hope the break is a proper one and the laptop stays shut for the whole of it. It's been an easier year for having you on the other side of it, and I don't think I've said that out loud at any point. I hope the festival at your end is a bright one and the year after it a steady one.

   Copy

Writing your own

Wish for time off, specifically. It is the one Diwali wish that means something to a colleague and that a corporate mailer would never make. An inbox that waits until Monday is funnier and kinder than prosperity and success.

Include the family, stop there. And your family is the right amount of personal for a working relationship. Anything more specific requires knowing them, and guessing is worse than being brief.

Diwali 2026, and when to send it

Diwali 2026 falls on Sunday 8 November, so a work message about it is either sent before the weekend or it is late. Send it on the Friday. One that arrives during the holiday asks a colleague to think about work on their day off, and one that arrives the week after has missed the day it was about.

Keep this one in English unless the two of you already write to each other in something else — which is why there is no Hindi anywhere in the six messages above, and there is on every other Diwali page here. Hinglish is right for a friend and a gamble across a mixed office, where the person reading may not share the register, and a Diwali note to a colleague is a card that has to be safe to be read by anyone.