Will it really open at midnight?

Before the time you set, the link shows a countdown instead of the page. At that moment the page opens, on whatever phone they are holding.

Can I use it for a long distance New Year?

Yes, it is made for that: your two cities light up in the same sky with the miles between them, and you can choose to make it open at their midnight.

Free to make. Send it free for 48 hours with a 'free version' mark, or keep it for good for $9.99 once.

Occasion

A New Year love letter that opens at midnight

New Year's Eve gives you one free shot at saying something big, because everyone is already being sentimental. A text at midnight gets lost among forty others. A letter they open at midnight, on its own, does not.

On Longlove the New Year design is Under the Same Sky: a night sky where your two cities light up and join, a shooting star and a rising moon, your photos on a star map, a jar of paper stars with reasons in them, and your letter in a midnight envelope. You can set it to open on the stroke of the new year.

Start with this template See live examples

Look back once, then look forward

A New Year letter has a simple shape. One paragraph about the year that is ending: the best day, the hardest week, the thing they did that you will remember. One paragraph about the year ahead: one thing you want to do together, one thing you want to get better at for them. Then the line you actually want them to remember. Keep it to about 200 words.

Lines to start from

'Everything I loved about this year was something we did together.' 'I don't have resolutions. I have plans, and you're in all of them.' 'This year I learned how much I like ordinary days, as long as they're with you.' 'Whatever next year is, I want to find out with you.' Use one as your first or last line, then fill the middle with things only the two of you would recognise.

Make it open at midnight

After you send it, set the time it opens, and their link shows a countdown until then. Set it as the time where you are. If you are spending New Year's Eve in different time zones, choose whose midnight it should be: theirs makes it the first thing they read in the new year, yours makes it the moment you are thinking of them.

Add your voice for the countdown you are missing

If you cannot be together at midnight, record thirty seconds for it: a countdown, a 'happy new year', the thing you would whisper if you were there. It plays under the letter when they press play, and you get an email the first time they do.

Questions

Start with Under the Same Sky

Starts as Under the Same Sky, filled in for you. Add your photos and words, preview it for free.

Start with this template