Open When Letters: 60 Ideas and What to Write
Open when letters are a set of sealed envelopes, each labelled with the moment it should be opened — open when you miss me, open when you doubt yourself, open on your thirtieth birthday — written in advance and given all at once to a partner, a friend or a child who is leaving. Sixty ideas follow, grouped by who they are for, with what to put inside each envelope, how many to make, and which letters are better sealed until a date than left in a box.
It is the rare present that costs an evening and some stationery, and gets used for years. The person opens one when they need it, which is the opposite of how most letters work.
The labels are the easy part. What follows also covers the inside of the envelope, which is where most sets run out of steam by letter six.
Updated
What an open when letter is
An open when letter is an ordinary letter with a condition written on the envelope instead of an address. You write a batch of them, seal each one, label it with the moment it is for, and hand the whole set over at once. The recipient keeps them and opens each when the label comes true.
They are given most often before a separation: a partner moving abroad for a year, a friend emigrating, a child leaving for university, a long posting. But they work between two people who share a kitchen, too. The point is that the letter is already written when the bad day arrives, by someone who was not having one.
The conditions come in two kinds, and the difference matters later in this guide. Most are moods and events — when you miss me, when you get the job — and nobody knows when they will happen. A few are dates: a birthday, an anniversary, a graduation. Those can be put on a calendar today.
Open when ideas for a partner
Each label comes with a note on what could go inside, because the label alone never wrote anybody's letter.
For a partner
- Open when you miss me — what I would be doing right now if I were in the room
- Open when we have just argued — what I think of you even when I am cross, written on a day I was not
- Open when you cannot sleep — something long and dull in my handwriting, on purpose
- Open when you need to laugh — the story you always ask me to tell, written out in full
- Open when you doubt us — the list of reasons, with dates
- Open when work has been terrible — permission to stop, and what to order for dinner
- Open when you want to know how we started — my version of the first month, which differs from yours
- Open when you are angry with me — the things I get wrong, admitted in advance
- Open when you have pulled something off — what I would say if I were there, and a request to tell me everything
- Open when you need a reason to get dressed — a plan for the two of us, with the date left blank
For long distance
- Open when you land — the first thing I wanted to say and would have forgotten by the time you called
- Open when the time difference is unbearable — my day hour by hour, so you can place me in it
- Open when the call drops — the end of the sentence, guessed in advance
- Open when you eat without me — the recipe we cook together, in my handwriting, scaled down for one
- Open when you see a couple in the street and mind — how many days are left, and what we do on the first one
- Open when you forget what home smells like — a scrap of fabric from the flat, sealed in a bag
- Open when you book the ticket — the list of places I am taking you
- Open when there is one week left — what I am saving to say in person, so you can hold me to it
Open when ideas for someone who is leaving
For a friend who is moving away
- Open when you arrive — three things to do in the first week, none of them useful
- Open when you know nobody yet — how the two of us became friends, as evidence that you can do it
- Open when you are homesick — a printed map of here, with our places marked
- Open when you have found your café — a demand for a photograph of it
- Open when you wonder whether leaving was a mistake — what you told me the night you decided
- Open when something good happens and nobody there knows why it matters — I know; write back
- Open when it is your birthday and I am not there — the speech I would have made, embarrassing parts included
- Open when you come back to visit — the list of what has changed, and what has not
For a child leaving home
- Open when you have unpacked — my own first night away from home, and how it went
- Open when you run out of money — what to cook for a week on very little, and no lecture
- Open when you are ill with nobody around — what I would bring you, and the soup recipe
- Open when you miss home and will not admit it — there is nothing to admit; here is what we had for dinner tonight
- Open when you have failed something — what I failed at your age, which you have never been told
- Open when you face your first load of laundry — the instructions, and an apology for not teaching you sooner
- Open when there is someone in your life — nothing to add; I just wanted to be in the room
- Open when you think about giving it all up — the question to ask yourself first, and my promise whatever the answer
- Open when you have to make a decision I would disagree with — make it anyway, and here is what I trust about you
- Open when you come home for the first holiday — what we kept exactly the same, and the one thing we moved
Open when ideas for hard days, good days and dates
These suit anybody. The last group is the odd one out: it opens on a day, not on a mood, and it comes up again further down.
For hard days
- Open when you doubt yourself — five things you have done that you said you could not
- Open when you have had bad news — no advice, only who to call and in what order
- Open when you feel behind everyone else — where I was at your age, truthfully
- Open when it is all too much — the smallest next thing, and permission to do only that
- Open when you have made a mistake — the worst one I ever made, and what happened afterwards
- Open when you feel alone — three people who would be glad to hear from you tonight, with their numbers
- Open when you are grieving — nothing clever; what I remember about them
- Open when the day has gone wrong before breakfast — what to eat, and the song to put on
- Open when nothing is wrong and you are sad anyway — that is allowed; here is a photograph
For good days
- Open when you get the job — I knew; here is the note I wrote the day you applied
- Open when you have something to celebrate and nobody is free — a paper crown, and instructions
- Open when you finish something hard — what it looked like from the outside while you were doing it
- Open when you are happy for no reason — write the date on the back and put it back in the box
- Open when you have made a new friend — why people like you, from someone who has had time to check
- Open when you move into the new place — where I think the sofa should go
- Open when you want to remember a good day — one of mine, with you in it
For dated moments
- Open on our first anniversary — what I expected this year to be, written before it happened
- Open on your eighteenth birthday — who you were at eight, from someone who was paying attention
- Open on your thirtieth birthday — what we both thought thirty would look like
- Open the day you graduate — what you said you wanted on the day you started
- Open on the morning of your wedding — the letter a parent writes years before there is anyone to marry
- Open on New Year's Day — what I hoped the year would bring you, to compare
- Open a year after you moved — whether it was worth it, in my opinion, written before I could know
- Open ten years from today — what today was like, in the detail nobody will remember
That is sixty. Nobody should write sixty. Choose the ten that will really happen to this person.
What to put inside each envelope
A letter alone is fine. One small object that belongs to the label makes it a better one, and gives you something to build the letter around.
A photograph, printed
One, relevant to the label, with the date and the place written on the back. Printed, because the whole point is that it works without a phone.
Something for the senses
A tea bag for the sleepless envelope, a sachet of the spice you cook with, a scrap of fabric. Nothing perishable, nothing that melts, nothing that leaks onto the letter.
A playlist, written out
Ten song titles by hand, in order, with one line on why the third one is there. They will find the songs themselves.
A printed map
Home, with your places marked, for the homesick envelope. Or the place they are going, with one recommendation you have researched and they have not.
Something to do
A crossword torn from the paper, a recipe card, a voucher in your own handwriting for a phone call at any hour. On a bad day, instructions beat sentiments.
Something to send back
A stamped postcard addressed to you. Several envelopes in a set should ask for a reply: it turns a gift into a correspondence.
How many to make, and how to package them
A set is judged on its weakest letter, not on the length of its list.
Ten good ones beat forty thin ones
By the twelfth letter most people are writing the same paragraph under a different label. Choose eight to twelve conditions that will really happen to this person, and give each one a full page.
Write the label as an instruction
“Open when you miss me”, in full, on the front, in handwriting they would know anywhere. No codes, and no numbers that need a key.
Put the rules on a cover note
One card on top of the pile: one at a time, only when the label is true, and no reading ahead. Most people obey it, which is rather the charm.
Same envelopes, one box
Identical envelopes, so that none looks more important than the others, in a box that closes and fits on a shelf. A shoebox covered in paper is the traditional answer and a good one.
Keep a list for yourself
Note what you wrote under each label before you seal it. In a year they will quote one back to you, and you will want to know what you said.
Add one with no condition
“Open whenever you like.” It gets opened in the car on the way home, which takes the pressure off all the others.
What to write when you do not know what to write
Every letter in the set can be built the same way, in three parts, and nobody will notice, because they are never read side by side.
First, name the moment. Say what you imagine is happening as the envelope is opened — the late hour, the dropped call, the results email — and get it slightly wrong on purpose. Being recognised is most of the comfort, and correcting you will make them smile.
Second, tell one specific story. Not that they are brave, but the afternoon they were; not that you love them, but what they did on the 14th of March that you have not mentioned since. A letter of general warmth could have been written to anybody. A detail only the two of you know could not.
Third, give them something to do next. Call me, however late. Go outside and come back. Eat the thing in the envelope. Turn the page over and write the date. A letter that ends on an instruction leaves them somewhere better than one that ends on a feeling.
Then stop. One side of paper, two at most. It will be read several times; it does not need to be long as well.
A condition or a date: the letters paper is bad at
Most open when letters open on a condition, and a condition only works on paper, in the hands of the person it was written for. They alone know when they miss you. No service can know that somebody is sad.
The dated ones are a different case. “Open on our first anniversary” and “open on your thirtieth birthday” have no condition to judge — only a day to wait for — and waiting is what paper envelopes are bad at. They get opened early on a slow Sunday. They get lost in a move, or left in a drawer in a flat somebody has since moved out of. The longer the wait, the worse the odds.
That is the part a digital time capsule does well. It opens on a date, not on a condition: you write the letter, add photos, a video or a voice recording if you want them, name the recipient and choose the day. They are emailed once when you create it, to say a capsule is waiting, and again when it unlocks; in between it cannot be opened early by anyone, including you. A capsule that opens within a year is free, so the first-anniversary letter costs nothing.
So do both. Paper for the conditions, in a box they can reach at two in the morning. A sealed capsule for the dates, where the point is that it cannot be reached at all. Put a card in the box that says so — “there is one more, and it arrives on your birthday” — and let them wonder.