Personalized Christmas Pillow With Your Photo

Shop bought Christmas pillows come in a small range of designs: a reindeer, a plaid pattern, a cursive Merry Christmas. They look festive, and they look exactly the same in every house on the street.

A personalized Christmas pillow carries something only your family has. This year's Christmas card photo. The children in matching pyjamas on Christmas morning. The dog wearing a Santa hat and an expression of deep betrayal. The drawing of Father Christmas your youngest made at school.

Over the years, these become part of the decorations that come out of the loft every December, the way ornaments with names on them do. Families often start a tradition of one new pillow each year, and a sofa of them becomes a record of how the children have grown.

This page is about Christmas pillows for your own home and how to make them. If you are buying for somebody else, Christmas photo gifts for the people on your list covers who to buy for and when to order.

This year's Christmas card photo

The photo you already chose for the card is, by definition, the family's favourite picture of the year. Printing it as a pillow means it lives on the sofa rather than on fifty mantelpieces for three weeks.

Matching pyjamas, every year

Families who take the same Christmas Eve photo every year often turn it into a tradition: one new pillow per year, and the collection on the sofa shows the children growing up.

A first Christmas together

For a newly married or newly moved in couple, a couple's first Christmas together printed on a heart shaped pillow is the decoration they will bring out every year after.

The first Christmas in a new house

The tree in the new front room, or the family on the doorstep in the snow. It doubles as a housewarming present in December for friends who moved this year.

The pet in a Santa hat

Most families have taken this photo at least once. The dog in a Santa hat, cut to its outline, is reliably the most photographed decoration in the house.

The first Christmas without someone

For families facing their first Christmas after a loss, a memorial cushion with a photo from a past Christmas keeps them part of the day. Mention it is a memorial in the order notes and it is handled personally.

Christmas photos are notoriously hard to get right, mostly because of the lighting. A few habits help.

• Take it in daylight. Photos in front of the tree at night are dark and grainy, however pretty the lights look in person. A morning photo by a window, with the tree in the background, prints far better.
• Avoid flash. It flattens faces and turns pets' eyes into glowing dots.
• Get close. In a group shot, everybody's face needs to be large enough to recognise on a pillow. Fill the frame with people rather than room.
• Take it early. If the pillow needs to arrive before Christmas, the photo needs to be taken in November. Many families do their festive photo the weekend the tree goes up.
• Look back. Last year's Christmas photos are often better than anything you can take in a rush, and a pillow of last Christmas is just as meaningful.

Upload a few options and compare them in the free preview, which shows exactly how each will look at the size you choose.

Every personalized pillow is made individually after you approve its preview, so timing works a little differently from buying off a shelf.

• Production starts when you approve the free preview, not when you place the order. Reply to the preview the same day if you can.
• Current production and delivery times are shown at checkout, so you can see whether a pillow will arrive in time before committing.
• December is the busiest month of the year for both production and postal services. Ordering in November takes the pressure off.
• If you are ordering several, each design has its own preview to approve. Do them in one sitting so none are left waiting.
• For relatives in other towns, have each pillow delivered straight to them rather than to you, which saves a second trip through the Christmas post.

If you are too late for this year, the pillow is just as welcome in January as the first decoration for next Christmas, especially with an everyday photo on the back.

A personalized Christmas pillow is one of the few gifts that works for almost everybody on the list, because the photo does the personal part.

• For grandparents, the grandchildren in this year's matching pyjamas, sent straight to their house with a card.
• For new parents, the baby's first Christmas photo, with a picture from the hospital on the back.
• For an office Secret Santa, the colleague's dog in a Santa hat, which is safe for any workplace and always gets a laugh.
• For a friend who lives far away, a photo of the two of you from a past Christmas together.
• For teachers, a drawing from the class, printed as a festive cushion for the reading corner.

Because the back can carry an everyday image, the gift does not disappear into a box on the twenty sixth. Put a non seasonal photo on the reverse and the recipient can keep it out all year, which makes it feel far more generous than a decoration they only see for a month.

• 20 cm, about 8 inches, fits inside a stocking or a Christmas Eve box.
• 40 cm, about 16 inches, the standard sofa pillow and the most ordered Christmas size.
• 60 cm, about 24 inches, for the bed or a large corner sofa, and for a grid of the family's year.
• Both sides are printed at no extra cost, so the back can carry an everyday image.

Each pillow arrives filled and sewn shut, ready to use. If you keep it as a Christmas only decoration, wash it in a laundry bag on a cool cycle and let it dry fully before storing it with the other decorations in a dry place. The image is dyed into the fibres rather than printed on top, so it comes out of storage next December looking the same as when it went in, without cracking or peeling.

Leaving it until mid December

Personalized items are made after you approve the preview, and December is the busiest month. Ordering early is the single biggest factor in getting it on time.

A dark photo of the tree

Fairy lights look magical in person and grainy in a photo. Daylight shots with the tree in the background print much better.

Faces too small in a group shot

A photo of twelve relatives around a dining table makes every face tiny. Crop closer, choose 60 cm, or pick a photo of fewer people.

Wanting the year but not adding it

Pillows print the image you upload. If you want the year or the family name on it, add it to the photo in an editing app before uploading, or have a child write it on their drawing.

Wasting the second side

A Christmas only pillow with a blank or repeated back spends most of the year in the loft. An everyday photo on the reverse keeps it useful all year round.

Forgetting a household

If one set of grandparents gets a pillow of the grandchildren, the other set will notice. With no bulk price, ordering one per household costs the same per pillow.

More ideas for the season and for the rest of the year.

• custom throw pillows for the rest of the year, with sizes and styling
• Gifts for grandparents, the people most likely to keep a Christmas pillow out
• photo gifts for the whole family, for one present that covers everybody
• plush made from a child's drawing, for a stocking filler they designed themselves