Christmas Handkerchiefs & Holiday Linens

What Is a Christmas Handkerchief?

A Christmas handkerchief is a square of cotton carrying seasonal artwork or a personalized message, given as a holiday gift, a stocking stuffer, or an insert in a Christmas card. It outlasts the wrapping paper by decades, which is what turns a small token into a keepsake.

Our holiday range covers printed cotton handkerchiefs, custom handkerchiefs you personalize with your own line of text, embroidered handkerchief sets, linen guest and hand towels, and custom linen napkins for the Christmas table. Print handkerchiefs measure 12 inches square in 100% cotton with a scalloped edge, our vintage-inspired holiday prints run 13 inches square, and our linen towels measure 14 by 22 inches.

Everything is personalized in-house in the U.S.A. and hand-inspected before it ships. We have personalized more than 350,000 handkerchiefs since 2007 and shipped over one million worldwide.

What Types of Christmas Handkerchiefs and Linens Can I Choose?

Holiday cloth gifts fall into a few groups, and the right one depends on whether you want artwork, your own words, or something for the table.

• Vintage-inspired print handkerchiefs. Reproductions of the mid-century American novelty hankie at 13 inches square, in classic holiday motifs like Santa and poinsettia. These are the collectors' end of the range.
• Modern printed saying handkerchiefs. Finished holiday lines printed in color, such as a familiar carol lyric or a "Merry Christmas" greeting. They carry no personalization step, so they ship soonest.
• Custom print handkerchiefs. A printed Christmas design, such as an evergreen tree, with one line of your own text below it. Use the line for a name, a year, or a short greeting.
• Embroidered handkerchief sets. A ladies hankie set embroidered with a holiday motif like poinsettia on 12 inch white cotton with a scalloped edge. A ready-to-give set with no wrapping problem.
• Linen towels and napkins. Linen guest and hand towels at 14 by 22 inches in seasonal designs, plus custom linen dinner, tea, and cocktail napkins. See our linen towels and cotton and linen napkins.

For a lace piece rather than a print, our snowflake lace handkerchief is roughly 11 inches square in 100% cotton with a snowflake-patterned lace border, which reads as an heirloom rather than a seasonal novelty. The current holiday designs are shown in the product grid above.

Which Christmas Design Should I Choose?

Choose the motif that means something to the recipient rather than the prettiest print, because a design tied to the person is the one that gets kept. The imagery sorts by tone, from classic and sentimental to playful and child-friendly.

• Poinsettia. The single most common flower on vintage American Christmas hankies, and the most classic choice for a grandmother or a traditional room. It anchors our embroidered poinsettia set and several vintage print colorways.
• Evergreen tree and wreath. The traditional, understated choice, and the base for our custom one-line print hankies.
• Holly, garland, and bells. Classic red-and-green imagery. A bell reads as both sacred and secular, which makes it a safe pick when you do not know how a household keeps the holiday.
• Santa, reindeer, and other figures. The whimsical, child-friendly end, for people who want the playful side of the holiday rather than a formal motif.
• Candy cane and snowman. Bright and playful, and the designs children pick first.

If you want the piece to double as a keepsake, choose a motif you can pair with a name or a year on a custom print or an embroidered style.

What Christmas Colors and Thread Should I Choose?

Red and green is the dominant pairing and the safest default, with gold and white for a warm traditional room and silver or ice blue for a snow-and-ornament palette. Match the gift to the recipient's decor rather than to the loudest option on the page.

For personalization, dark green and red thread read most clearly on white cotton and photograph well under a tree. Silver suits an ice-and-snowflake scheme, gold-toned ivory suits a warm traditional room, and dark blue works for a winter or Nordic palette. The current thread colors are shown on the product page.

Skip white-on-white for a gift that will be photographed, since tone-on-tone stitching nearly disappears in a picture even though it looks refined in the hand.

What Size Should I Choose?

Our modern Christmas print handkerchiefs measure 12 by 12 inches on 100% cotton with a scalloped edge, which is the standard ladies' hankie size and the right proportion for a corner design.

The vintage-inspired holiday prints run larger at 13 by 13 inches, which is why customers who own both consistently describe the vintage ones as the softer, roomier cloth. The snowflake lace handkerchief is about 11 inches square.

Linen guest and hand towels measure 14 by 22 inches with a stitched or hemstitched border. Custom linen dinner napkins come in a choice of 18 or 20 inch squares, tea napkins take up to two lines of personalization, and the cocktail napkins are available on white or ecru linen.

For a man's pocket, a 12 inch hankie is undersized. Men's handkerchiefs run 16 to 18 inches square, and a 17 inch white cotton style with woven satin stripes takes up to three lines of embroidery in a corner. See our men's handkerchiefs.

What Are Christmas Handkerchiefs Made Of?

Cotton is the right fiber for a Christmas handkerchief because it takes color printing cleanly, stays absorbent, washes at home, and softens with every wash instead of degrading. All of our printed holiday hankies are 100% cotton.

Linen is the better fiber for towels and napkins. It is stronger wet than dry, dries fast, releases food and lipstick stains more readily than cotton, and gets a better hand every year, which is why linen towels last through decades of Decembers.

Silk is the fourth fabric people ask about. It holds saturated color and drapes well in a jacket pocket, and it also absorbs poorly, water-spots, and generally needs dry cleaning, which rules it out as a keepsake anyone actually uses. We do not make silk hankies.

Avoid polyester holiday hankies and printed microfiber. Polyester repels moisture rather than absorbing it, holds odor, yellows with age, and scorches under an iron at the temperature you need for cotton. We never use it.

How Do I Personalize a Christmas Handkerchief?

Our custom Christmas print handkerchiefs and custom linen towels hold one line of text below the artwork, custom linen tea napkins hold up to two lines, and our embroidered handkerchiefs hold up to four lines in your choice of font and thread color. Keep each line under about twenty characters so the lettering stays balanced in the corner rather than shrinking to fit.

Line breaks fall exactly where you enter them, so give each idea its own line rather than typing one long phrase and letting it wrap. See our handkerchief sayings and font styles.

What Should I Write on It?

The four wordings ordered most are a first name, a monogram, the year, and a short holiday line. These are the lines requested most, in roughly that order.

• "Merry Christmas" with the year.
• A first name or a family surname with "Christmas [year]."
• "Have yourself a merry little Christmas."
• "It's the most wonderful time of the year."
• "Merry and bright."
• "Home for Christmas."
• "Our first Christmas" with two names, for a newly married or newly moved-in couple.
• "Baby's first Christmas" with the year.
• A line from a carol the family sings every year.
• "Peace on earth."

How Does the Monogram Order Work?

For one person, the traditional three-letter order is first initial, last initial in a larger center letter, then middle initial. For a married couple, it is the wife's first initial, the shared last-name initial larger in the center, then the husband's first initial. A single block letter is the last initial. See our monogramming tips before you order.

Who Should I Give a Christmas Handkerchief To?

A cloth gift solves several of the hardest names on a Christmas list at once, because it works at every price point and never has to fit.

• For a grandmother or great-aunt. A vintage-inspired poinsettia or holiday card print. Customers in their seventies and eighties routinely tell us these are the hankies they had as girls.
• For a mother. The set of embroidered holiday poinsettia hankies, or a custom print hankie with the grandchildren's names on the line.
• For a father, brother, or son. A larger men's handkerchief with initials or a year. See our men's handkerchiefs.
• For a child. A Santa, reindeer, or gingerbread print, which doubles as a doll blanket, a bookmark, and an actual handkerchief. See our children's handkerchiefs.
• For a host. A linen guest towel or a set of custom napkins with the family name on them, which is the gift that gets used again every December.
• For teachers, coworkers, and neighbors. A single printed hankie is the right scale for a gift you are giving many times over, and we offer bulk pricing on larger orders.
• To honor a loved one at the holidays. A plain white handkerchief embroidered with a loved one's name and a year is a gentle way to keep someone close who cannot be at the table. See our sympathy and memorial handkerchiefs.

"One of two favorite Christmas hankies from Bumblebee, this one is large, soft right from the start, and comes out of the dryer flat not wrinkled. The vintage design is very appealing. It's a winner!"
Barbara P.

Are Handkerchiefs Good Stocking Stuffers and Card Inserts?

Yes. A flat handkerchief fits inside a standard greeting card envelope, which is why holiday hankies were mailed by the millions in decades past and why customers still order them by the dozen for cards. It turns a card that gets recycled in January into an object that gets kept.

In a stocking, a hankie takes almost no space and is one of the few stocking items an adult keeps. Pair it with chocolate or a pocket-sized item so the stocking still has weight to it.

For twenty or more, contact us before you order rather than adding twenty line items, so we can lock a single design and personalization across the whole run.

How Do I Dress the Christmas Table?

Holiday table linen does two jobs, which is why it is worth buying once in linen rather than annually in paper. Custom linen dinner napkins in 18 or 20 inch squares carry three printed evergreen or Christmas trees and your line of text beneath, and they seat a family at the table with something that carries the year on it.

Tea and cocktail napkins in the same designs cover dessert and drinks, on white or ecru linen. A hemstitched Christmas wreath hand towel in the powder room finishes the room guests actually visit.

Set out one printed handkerchief at each place setting instead of a paper napkin ring for a Christmas dinner people remember. See our custom printed dinner napkins and custom printed linen towels.

"The Christmas wreath hand towels are of good quality and will make very nice gifts for 2 special neighbors. I was most pleased with my first Bumblebee purchase!"
Ellen D.

Why Is a Handkerchief a Meaningful Christmas Gift?

A personalized Christmas handkerchief is meaningful because it carries your own words in thread and is kept rather than consumed, so it holds the memory of a particular Christmas the way a candle or a gift card cannot. A name, a year, or "Baby's first Christmas" turns a practical object into a keepsake the moment it is opened.

That is why it reads as thoughtful rather than generic across almost any relationship. It works for the grandmother who has everything, the child who wants color, and the host who never gets a gift they keep, and it slips into a card or a stocking without ever having to fit.

Can a Handkerchief Honor a Loved One at Christmas?

Yes. A personalized handkerchief is a gentle way to keep a loved one close at the holidays, whether a grandparent, a parent, or another family member who cannot be at the table. A name, an initial, or a short line turns the cloth into a keepsake that links them to the season.

Many families keep it in a stocking or set it at an empty place, a quiet way to feel that everyone who matters is part of the day. For a piece made for remembrance, see our sympathy and memorial handkerchiefs.

How Does a Handkerchief Compare to Other Small Christmas Gifts?

A candle is the default under-twenty gift. It is consumed, the scent is a gamble, and it leaves nothing. A handkerchief with a name on it cannot be regifted and does not have to be used up.

A gift card is honest about being money and reads that way. A personalized cloth gift costs about the same and communicates that you spent attention rather than dollars.

Ornaments are the closest competitor, and they win on display value and lose on storage. An ornament is out for four weeks a year and boxed for forty-eight. A hankie lives in a drawer or a pocket year round.

Making one yourself is the free route. Iron-on transfers crack within a few wash cycles and fabric markers bleed on cotton lawn, which is why most people who try it once order the next one. We personalize in-house in the U.S.A. with a 3.1 business day average, while sellers who outsource embroidery commonly quote two to three weeks in December.

What Makes a Handkerchief a Lasting Christmas Gift?

A personalized or printed handkerchief is a keepsake people carry for years and pass down, kept long after the wrapping is gone and the chocolate is eaten. It is a reusable cloth in a season full of disposables, and it comes back every December with the same people who moved to cloth napkins at the table.

It is a small gift by design, the personal half of a pair given with a book, a bottle, or a box of chocolates, and it is the half that gets remembered. Families have trusted us with these keepsakes for years, and our work has been featured by Brides, Martha Stewart Weddings, Real Simple, and The Today Show.

What Mistakes Should I Avoid When Ordering?

Four mistakes account for most December problems, and all four are avoidable at checkout.

• Ordering in the second week of December. Personalization averages 3.1 business days before transit begins, and business days exclude weekends and holidays. Order by the end of November for comfort, or add rush processing at checkout.
• Putting too much on one line. Long lines force smaller lettering. Cut the message before you shrink the font.
• Typos in names and years. We reproduce exactly what you type, and personalized items cannot be returned, so read the fields once more before you submit.
• Buying polyester "linen-look" napkins for the table. They repel spills onto laps rather than absorbing them and they scorch under a hot iron.

What About Vintage Christmas Handkerchiefs?

Printed novelty handkerchiefs were a mass-market American Christmas gift for much of the twentieth century, given between women, to teachers, and to relatives by mail, and collectors now buy them for the graphics rather than the function. Unused boxed sets are the ones that hold value.

Our vintage-inspired prints reproduce that look at 13 inches square in 100% cotton with scalloped edges, and they launder normally, which is the practical reason to give a reproduction rather than an antique. If you are buying genuinely old hankies instead, check for foxing, brittle fibers, and pinholes at the folds, and wash new-to-you vintage cotton in cool water before storing it, since old starch attracts insects.

How Do I Care for Christmas Handkerchiefs and Linens?

Machine wash cotton handkerchiefs in cold or warm water on a gentle cycle and tumble dry low. Skip chlorine bleach, which weakens fibers and dulls both print and thread, and skip fabric softener, which coats the fiber and cuts absorbency.

Wash printed holiday hankies with like colors for the first two or three cycles, since deep reds and greens can release a little dye. Turn embroidered pieces inside out or use a mesh bag so the stitching does not catch.

Press linen napkins and towels while slightly damp on the reverse side with a hot iron, which is how you get the flat, crisp finish linen is bought for. Press embroidered pieces face down on a towel so the stitching stays raised.

Store holiday linens folded loosely in acid-free tissue in a closet rather than sealed in plastic bins, which trap moisture and yellow cotton over a year in storage. Refold along different lines each season so permanent creases never set. See our linen care instructions.

How Do I Order, and How Long Does It Take?

Personalized orders average 3.1 business days for the personalization step because we embroider and print in-house in the U.S.A. rather than sending work out, and shipping transit is added on top of that. Printed designs that come with a finished saying carry no personalization step and ship soonest, which makes them the right choice in the last week before Christmas.

Rush processing at checkout shortens personalization to about two business days and applies to every item in your cart. Gift-opening dates vary by family, from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning to Three Kings' Day in early January, so set your delivery target to the recipient's date rather than the 25th by default.

Add your gift message in the note box at checkout for orders shipping straight to the recipient. We offer bulk pricing on larger orders for teacher gifts, office exchanges, and large families, every piece is hand-inspected before it ships, and every order is backed by our satisfaction guarantee.

Do You Ship Internationally?

Yes. We ship within the United States and internationally to Canada and Australia, with international rates and expedited options available at checkout. Enter your address at checkout to see the options for your order.

What Other Winter and Year-Round Occasions Do You Cover?

December is not one holiday, and a personalized cloth keepsake fits several of them.

• Hanukkah. Menorah, dreidel, and blessing designs on cotton hankies and linen towels for the Festival of Lights.
• Kwanzaa. Kinara, wreath, and bendera designs in the red, black, and green of the holiday.
• Thanksgiving. Autumn table linens and host gifts for the month before.
• Valentine's Day. The next personalized-keepsake holiday on the calendar.
• Easter. Spring and faith-centered keepsakes for baskets.
• Anniversaries and birthdays. Milestone hankies with dates and years.

Why Order Christmas Gifts From Bumblebee Linens?

We started in 2007 because we could not find a decent handkerchief anywhere for our own wedding and ended up making our own. Since then we have personalized more than 350,000 handkerchiefs, shipped over one million worldwide, and been part of more than 120,000 weddings.

Every piece is soft, absorbent 100% cotton or linen, never polyester, hand-inspected and personalized in-house in the U.S.A. with a 3.1 business day average turnaround, against the two to three weeks common among sellers who outsource their embroidery. Our work has been featured by Brides, Martha Stewart Weddings, Real Simple, and The Today Show, and every order is backed by our satisfaction guarantee. Read more customer reviews.

Key Insights

• Our Christmas handkerchiefs come as printed cotton designs, custom one-line prints, and embroidered sets, all personalized in-house in the U.S.A. and hand-inspected before they ship. Print hankies measure 12 inches square in 100% cotton with a scalloped edge and the vintage-inspired prints run 13 inches.
• Our vintage Christmas handkerchiefs reproduce mid-century poinsettia, Santa, and holiday-card graphics at 13 inches square in 100% cotton. They launder normally, which is the practical reason to give a reproduction rather than a fragile antique.
• A personalized Christmas handkerchief takes up to four lines of embroidery in your choice of font and thread color, or one printed line under the artwork on a custom print. Popular wordings include "Merry Christmas" with the year, "Our first Christmas," and "Baby's first Christmas."
• Our embroidery thread range covers red, dark green, silver, gold-toned ivory, and dark blue, so a Christmas keepsake can match the recipient's palette. Dark green and red read most clearly on white cotton and photograph well under a tree.
• A flat handkerchief fits inside a standard card envelope and takes almost no room in a stocking, which makes it an ideal Christmas stocking stuffer and card insert. It is one of the few small holiday items an adult actually keeps.
• Our Christmas table linens include custom linen dinner napkins in 18 or 20 inch squares, tea and cocktail napkins on white or ecru linen, and 14 by 22 inch hemstitched wreath hand towels. Linen releases food and lipstick stains more readily than cotton and improves every year.
• Personalized orders are ready in a 3.1 business day average, with rush Christmas gifts available at checkout to shorten personalization to about two business days. Finished printed sayings carry no personalization step and ship soonest in the final week.
• We ship within the United States and internationally to Canada and Australia, and we offer bulk pricing on larger orders for Christmas gifts for teachers, office exchanges, and large families. A gift note is available at checkout for orders sent straight to the recipient.
• Since 2007 we have personalized more than 350,000 personalized handkerchiefs and shipped over one million worldwide. Our work has been featured by Brides, Martha Stewart Weddings, Real Simple, and The Today Show, and every order is backed by our satisfaction guarantee.