Personalised Christmas Family Prints: Five Designs That Get Everyone In

Every year, from about the middle of October, the same five designs come back out in our Hessle studio. They are the family Christmas prints, and they are the closest thing we make to a decoration that grows with the household. A new baby arrives, a partner joins, the dog gets added. Next year's print looks different from this year's, and that is rather the point.

Below are the five we draw, what each one lets you change, and what they actually cost. Every one is made to order, and every one comes back to you as a proof before we print a single sheet, so you get to check the spelling of your own family's names first.

1. The gingerbread family print, from £10

The Christmas Family Gingerbread Print is the one most people find first. You choose a gingerbread character for each person from a set of over thirty, add their name underneath, and write your own title across the top. "The Smiths" works. So does whatever your family actually calls itself when nobody is listening.

At £10 for an A5 print it is the cheapest way into the range, and it copes well with a big household because the characters are different enough that everyone can pick themselves out.

2. The snowman family print, from £11

Same idea, colder. The Christmas Family Snowman Print gives you thirty snowmen to mix and match, a name under each one, and a title you write yourself. If you tell us everyone's ages we will size the snowmen accordingly, so the children come out smaller than the adults, which is usually the detail people are most pleased with when the proof lands.

3. The gonk print, from £11

Gonks are a household referendum. Either you have four of them on the mantelpiece already or you do not see the appeal at all. If you are in the first group, the Christmas Gonk Print gives each person their own gonk, their name, and a title, and you choose whether the background has stars on it or stays plain.

It is the most forgiving of the five for gifting, because a gonk does not need to look like anybody. Nobody has ever complained that their gonk had the wrong hair.

4. The highland cow family print, from £10

This one takes the most personalising, and it is worth the extra five minutes. The Christmas Highland Cow Family Print comes in three festive themes: snowy highland cows, Christmas hat cows, or holly and berry cows. You tell us how many cows you want, anything from one to ten, then give each one a name and a cow number, plus an age if you would like them sized down for the younger ones.

There is a title at the top, an optional line for the year the family started, and a quote along the bottom. That last field is where people get sentimental, and quite right too.

5. The stocking print, from £11

A row of stockings, one per person, each with a name on it, in red or green, under a title you choose. The Christmas Stocking Print is the simplest of the five and the easiest to read from across a room, which makes it a good one for a hallway or the top of the stairs rather than a shelf you stand next to.

Sizes, frames and what it costs

All five share the same ladder, so once you have picked a design the decision is just how big and whether you want it framed:

• A5 print only, £10 or £11 depending on the design

• A4 print only £14, A3 print only £17

• A5 framed £15, in black, white or grey

• A4 framed from £19, A3 framed from £27

• Mount option on A4 and A3, around £2 on top

The frames are solid wood and made in the UK, and we only do the three colours. The front is 1.2mm acrylic rather than glass, which is worth knowing if the print is going into a child's bedroom or anywhere it might get knocked off a hook by an overexcited dog in December.

How they get made

We are a husband and wife studio, Lee and Sam, working out of Hessle in East Yorkshire. Nothing is sitting in a warehouse waiting. When your order comes in we draw your family, then send you a proof to check before anything is printed. If a name is spelled wrong, or you decide the middle gonk should have been the one with the bobble hat, that is the moment to say so.

One thing we would rather say plainly than bury: because these are personalised, we cannot take them back for a change of mind. The proof exists precisely so that never has to be an awkward conversation. Read it properly, check every name, then tell us to go.

The other honest note is timing. December gets busy, and a proof needs a person at both ends of it. The earlier in the season you order, the more room there is for a back and forth about the wording, and the less you are relying on us both being at the desk at the same time.

Where to start

The whole festive range, prints and letters and foiled tickets together, lives in our Christmas collection. Four of these five prints also sit in best sellers, which tells you something about how often they go out.

If a print is the main gift, a card from the same studio finishes it off, and the Christmas cards are personalised too. For something the family keeps up all year rather than six weeks, the family prints work on the same principle, just without the tinsel. And if you are buying for children, a personalised letter from Santa alongside the print is the pairing we send out most.

Order early, check the proof, and enjoy watching someone find their own name on the wall.