How to Create the Perfect Christmas Card for Your Family or Business

Every December we print holiday cards for South Shore families and businesses side by side — and the ones that come out best all follow the same handful of decisions. Here's how we walk customers through it in the shop. Explore our custom Christmas cards and business holiday cards to compare card styles, paper choices, envelopes and addressing options as you plan your design.

Wondering about deadlines? See our 2026 Christmas card ordering timeline.

Start with the job the card has to do

• Family cards usually lead with a photo. The photo is the message; the words are a caption.
• Business cards lead with warmth and a reason to remember you in January. A thank-you line beats a sales pitch every time.
• Mixed use (a small business owner mailing to both) — print one design and swap only the inside greeting.

Getting your photos right

This is where most holiday card problems start. A photo that looks perfect on your phone can print soft or pixelated once it's blown up to 5×7.

1. Send the original file, not a screenshot or text-message copy. Texting and social apps compress images hard. AirDrop, email as "actual size," or upload the original.
2. Aim for 300 dpi at final size. Practically: a photo at least 1500×2100 pixels prints beautifully at 5×7.
3. Shoot (or crop) with the card shape in mind. Leave a little air around heads — every trim size crops slightly differently.
4. Watch the light. Outdoor shade and window light print far better than indoor flash, which flattens skin tones.
5. Send more than one. We'll tell you which file will actually hold up at print size.

Bring us a Canva, Etsy, Minted-style or Shutterfly-style design and we can print it too — just export a print-ready PDF with bleed. Upload it through our Place Order page and we'll flag anything that needs fixing before we run it.

Choosing a card stock

• 100 lb gloss cover — the photo card standard. Punchy color, deep blacks, snapshot-sharp. Best for photo-driven family cards.
• 100 lb matte or silk cover — a lower-gloss option for photo and business holiday cards. If you plan to write on the card, ask us to confirm the surface is suitable for your pen.
• 110–130 lb uncoated cover — thick, natural, pen-friendly. Great for typographic or illustrated designs and for anyone hand-signing every card.
• Linen or felt cover — subtle texture, reads formal. Beautiful for corporate greetings; skip it if fine hairline type or heavy photo coverage is involved.

If you plan to hand-write inside the card, tell us up front — glossy stock resists ink, and matte or uncoated is a much better writing surface.

Sizes, folds and envelopes

• 5×7 flat — the workhorse. Photo front, greeting on the back. Mails in an A7 envelope.
• 4×6 flat — budget-friendly for larger mailing lists, still photo-forward.
• 5×7 folded — photo or artwork on the front, room inside for a real note. Best for business holiday cards that get signed by hand.
• Panoramic / 4×9 — nice for multi-photo year-in-review layouts.

We can supply matching envelopes plain, or printed with your return address (and, for businesses, printed recipient addressing so nobody on your team spends an evening writing 400 envelopes).

When to order

1. Businesses: order by mid-November. Corporate cards should land before the last week of December, when mailboxes are full and offices empty out.
2. Families: order by the end of November. That leaves time for a proof, printing, and a relaxed evening of addressing.
3. Photo sessions: book October. Booking early gives you more time to choose images, review a proof and arrange printing.
4. Cutting it close? Call us at 781-585-6021 — we run holiday cards in-house in Kingston, so short-notice jobs are usually still possible; we'll give you an honest turnaround before you commit.

Small details that make a card feel expensive

• Full-bleed photos (no white border) look more custom than framed ones.
• One typeface, two weights. Mixing three fonts is the fastest way to look like a template.
• Round corners on a photo card — a tiny upcharge, noticeably more premium.
• For businesses, consider a personal signature or short handwritten note to make the greeting feel more individual.