Top 10+ Best Selling Christmas Sweatshirt and Hoodie Design Ideas

As a print-on-demand seller, you might know that sweatshirts and hoodies are the top-selling items in winter, especially during Christmas. Therefore, it’s not hard to find many models of these shirts in different designs. So, how can you stand out from other sellers in the market? The answer is unique and trendy designs!

In this article, we’ll walk you through the top 10+ best-selling Christmas sweatshirt and hoodie design ideas. Moreover, we also provide some important considerations to keep in mind when designing this type of shirt for the season. Read till the end to get all details! 

Top 10+ Best Selling Christmas Sweatshirt and Hoodie Design Ideas

The best-selling products of the holiday season always balance at the intersection of trendiness and timelessness. Imagine custom hoodies and sweaters with bold graphics, warm colors, and phrases that connect emotionally, whether they’re funny, nostalgic, or heartwarming.

Here are some design groups that consistently rank among the top sellers:

Family Personalized

Christmas is one of the most important holidays of the year, and many people will come home and reunite with their families. And it would be great to wear personalized sweatshirts or hoodies with designs matching family members. These shirts are warm and comfortable and suitable for each family member. Therefore, these items always attract buyers who are looking for meaningful family gifts.

Some custom hoodies and sweatshirts design ideas for Christmas:

• Matching “Christmas Morning Crew” hoodies
• “Mama Elf,” “Papa Elf,” “Tiny Elf” sweatshirts
• Monogrammed name and year personalized hoodie
• “Our First Christmas as Mr. & Mrs.” sweaters
• Pet and owner matching “Santa’s Favorites”

These designs are most suitable for simple fonts, a minimalist layout, and small symbols like snowflakes or pine trees. Merchize has many kinds of sweatshirts and hoodies for you to choose from normal, embroidered, to all-over print models. 

Retro and Vintage

Classic design evokes a sense of nostalgia and resonates with customers across generations. With 80s and 90s Christmas motifs, grainy textures, and TV special typography, these shirts can bring a strong holiday nostalgia feel.

Classic design ideas:

• “Happy Holidays” sweatshirt in classic red and green tones
• Classic Santa and reindeer motif with a slightly cracked texture
• 90s typography with large, bold Christmas symbols
• Classic “Classic Christmas Movie Club” hoodie for Christmas movie fans
• Candy cane stripe design with a distressed finish

We recommend using soft or muted colors to add a touch of classic. Alternatively, you can also combine bold text with faded illustrations to create a nostalgic feel, thereby building a classic Christmas collection that attracts customers who love nostalgia and the old holiday spirit.

Classic and Festive

While the fashion industry is ever-changing, some designs never go out of style. Simple, Christmas-themed hoodies and sweatshirts with snowflakes, reindeer, ornaments, or classic greetings are popular year after year. These products are easy to gift, stand out at Christmas parties, and are perfect for holiday photos, making them a safe choice while also being easily scalable for brand owners to tap into sales.

Design ideas:

• “Merry and Bright” with a festive font and gold accents
• “’Tis the Season” with delicate snowflake clusters
• A pine tree and star logo with handwritten lettering overlay
• A striking red and white “Ho Ho Ho” motif
• A cozy sweater with a candy cane and bell frame

Also, combining simple graphics with bold typography will create a bestseller. Plus, you can add a hand-painted tree or fun motif for a unique touch, making your design both traditional and different.

Embroidered Christmas Sweatshirt

Custom embroidery always brings a premium and outstanding feel, especially during the Christmas season when customers are looking for luxurious, sophisticated, and meaningful gifts. A Christmas embroidered sweatshirt is not only beautiful but also becomes a worthy gift, completing the holiday collection of any POD store.

Outstanding embroidery ideas:

• Small pine tree of snowflower on the chest brings dedication with a touch of the holiday season.
• Festive script across the font – short, warm, easy to create emotions.
• Embroidered pet name with a paw print makes a personalized feel and is easy to go viral.
• Special year or day with a classic holiday symbol evokes a sense of remembrance.
• Minimalist logo with holiday sign suitable for branding or team uniforms.

These designs are perfect for a minimalist style, with a moderate number of stitches but a strong, luxurious effect. Keep the artwork clean and balanced, using embroidery to highlight simple graphics and sophisticated typography.

Ugly and Funny

When it comes to Christmas clothing, we can’t help but mention ugly and funny designs. They bring a strong festive vibe and instantly put people in the holiday spirit. Many people enjoy wearing ugly Christmas shirts at holiday parties to stand out. And nowadays, ugly but cute patterns are trending; they’re funny, ironic, and easy to wear in any situation. These designs often combine bold colors with adorable characters or funny quotes about this holiday. You can explore some suggested ideas below:

• Humorous holiday characters with exaggerated expressions or outfits
• Playful animal illustrations placed in chaotic seasonal scenes
• Bold color combinations with intentionally clashing patterns
• Parody-style designs that poke fun at classic Christmas imagery
• Busy, maximalist layouts filled with quirky icons and layered graphics

You can use bright fonts and contrasting colors to make your design more attractive. Besides, a holiday gift collection is also a good plan to encourage customers to buy your products. And finally, if you are ready to create your own ugly sweater, you can see our guide to design this shirt to get more examples.   

Minimalist Holiday Aesthetics

The truth is that not everyone is into flashy colors or elaborate designs. Minimalist Christmas sweatshirts and hoodies offer a modern, versatile style that can be easily mixed and matched with everyday outfits, while still maintaining the festive spirit. These designs are especially suitable for neutral tones and elegant styles.

Minimalist design ideas:

• Small embroidered logos on the chest, wrists, or collar
• Serif or monoline text with festive phrases or initials
• Outlines of Christmas symbols on the sleeves
• Small motifs or simple shapes, arranged delicately
• One-word quotes or dates printed in soft seasonal colors

To achieve this style, you need to choose a light color palette and leave plenty of space. You can also try colored embroidery, minimalist logos, or simple icons. These items not only bring a sense of luxury but also help customers welcome the festive season in a sophisticated and stylish way.

Empowering and Inclusive

Designs that reflect values, identity, and self-expression are becoming a prominent trend during the holiday season. These sweatshirts and hoodies speak directly to communities, causes, or cultural pride, making them meaningful gifts and memorable conversation starters.

Suggested design ideas based on values ​​and identity:

• Festive messages focused on togetherness, community, or mental health
• Illustrations that reflect diverse family structures and traditions
• Patterns that celebrate shared identities through specific motifs or themes
• Symbolic elements are subtly integrated into holiday imagery
• Graphics that emphasize community, connection, or family

In short, you must keep the message clear, inspiring, and incorporate authentic promotions. For added impact, you can build a themed collection, highlighting this as a meaningful way to celebrate shared values ​​during the holiday season.

Pet Lovers

Pet owners love to incorporate their furry friends into holiday products. This is also true for hoodies and sweatshirts, where pets become a cute, sentimental highlight. These designs not only become meaningful items to wear on special occasions but also a gift for friends and families on holidays. Therefore, it’s not hard to understand that pet-related designs are always a prominent trend during the Christmas season. And if you care about this design topic, you can see some suggested design ideas below:

• Pets wearing festive accessories like scarves, hats, or reindeer antlers
• Footprints or bones arranged in the shape of a pine tree or wreath
• Pet jokes turned into seasonal puns
• Dog or cat silhouettes paired with minimalist Christmas motifs
• Coordinated pet and human felt with adorable coordinating motifs

To highlight your pet, use bright colors and playful layouts. Also, don’t forget to add personalization to your product to attract customers, pet owners to spend money on your product.

Food and Drink

Everyone has a favorite snack or drink in the holiday season. Therefore, incorporating these familiar elements into a hoodie design not only creates intimacy but is also a smart way to evoke a feeling of warmth and Christmas spirit. Designs inspired by winter-inspired food and drinks can also easily become meaningful gifts, suitable for many users. In that spirit, you can transform familiar foods and drinks into trendy and emotional illustrations:

• Seasonal foods like gingerbread, candy canes, and Christmas cookies
• Hot drinks in cute mugs with snowy backgrounds
• The “Snack Squad / Snack Team” theme brings together a variety of foods and drinks
• Christmas recipes reimagined into unique graphics
• Stunning illustrations of seasonal drinks like hot cocoa, eggnog, and cider

These ideas are highly applicable and work well with a variety of products like t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies. More importantly, you can easily customize them in a variety of styles, from vivid illustrations recreating a Christmas table to sophisticated graphics simulating a holiday cocktail. This flexibility makes your POD collection rich, while also reaching the diverse preferences of each customer group.

Trending Women’s and Men’s Christmas Sweatshirt Styles

If you want to succeed in this sales season, you need to know more about your customer segment. Each customer group will love different styles, so target different products for women, men, couples, or kids for a more suitable design.

In addition, product performance is also influenced by fit and style, especially during the holiday season when shoppers want clothes that look good, are comfortable, and photograph well.

Here are trends for Christmas 2025 for different customer groups:

Women’s Style

• Oversized hoodies continue to be popular with women due to their comfortable feel and versatile layering ability. They are a style that allows the wearer to pair them with anything from leggings to joggers to miniskirts.
• Cropped sweatshirts: In women’s fashion, cropped items are still a sustainable trend. The combination of cropped tops and high-waisted pants or skirts creates a youthful, dynamic silhouette. 
• Relaxed silhouettes combined with soft graphics, organic strokes, or soft color palettes are popular. This is the “cosy modern” vibe that this year’s fashion trend is aiming for. POD Sellers can exploit visual tones such as soft lines, line art, minimalist flowers, or soft light patterns.
• Neutral or pastel tones: Not every design needs to be too bright. Neutral tones (beige, cream, gray, taupe) or pastel tones (pink, mint green, lavender) are making women’s fashion products easier to wear, suitable for more situations. For POD sellers, this color scheme also helps products go beyond the holiday season, easy to sell all year round and never go out of style.

Men’s Style

• Classic crewnecks with bold lettering, geometric shapes, or vintage graphics are still dominant in men’s wardrobes. This style is easy to coordinate and adapt to many POD designs: from personality slogans, strong typography, to retro artwork or graphic line art. The simple shirt shape helps the graphics stand out, attracting male customers of all ages.
• Standard hoodie designs accompanied by a slogan or large logo always perform well in the POD market. This is an opportunity for you to develop statement designs, sports logos, pop culture icons, or exclusive artwork, making the product easy to sell and easy to go viral.
• Sport-inspired or retro aesthetics are nostalgic and easy to like. They are also ideal for gifting: fashionable and iconic, suitable for men from their teens to middle age.
• The main colors include: black, gray, navy blue, and green. This is a familiar palette, easy to coordinate and suitable for all styles: from casual, streetwear to sporty. Using this color palette makes the product easy to sell in winter and easy to mix and match with other layers, such as jackets, sweaters, or shirts.

Unisex Fits

• Fleece garments with relaxed cuts offer comfort and versatility. They are ideal for layering or multi-layering.
• Classic holiday motifs with clean, easily recognizable lines are always a safe and popular choice. They are suitable for men, women, and children, expanding the sales potential of “family matching” combos. You can exploit traditional motifs such as pine trees, reindeer, Nordic or geometric patterns, which are both sophisticated and highly commercial.
• Midweight fabrics allow for layering in a variety of climates, which is a big plus for customers who live in cold or changing climates, and also helps you create all-season, more marketable products.
• Neutral color palettes such as cream, grey, or light red are widely loved for their ability to easily coordinate with many styles. You can combine with contrasting or subtle printed details to create accents while still maintaining versatility for the wearer.

Why are Sweatshirts and Hoodies Selling Well During Christmas?

Winter with low temperatures makes customers prioritize warm and comfortable clothes, and sweatshirts or hoodies with soft, stretchy materials perfectly meet this need. They not only help keep warm but are also flexible when combined with jackets, shirts, or winter accessories. At the same time, these are also popular gifts during the festive season, suitable for men, women, and children, easy to choose a size, easy to coordinate, and highly applicable, helping customers feel secure when buying as gifts. This is the main reason why sales of sweatshirts and hoodies increase sharply during Christmas.

Christmas is also the time when customers look for festive motifs such as pine trees, reindeer, snowflakes, or funny slogans. Matching family shirts, ugly Christmas sweaters, or exclusive artworks all create great appeal, easily boosting sales. As evidenced by the fact that keywords like “sweatshirt” or “hoodie” always increase sharply in winter according to Google Trends, and on e-commerce platforms like Etsy, Amazon, or eBay, countless hoodie and sweatshirt designs appear, showing a clear increase in demand.

In addition, hoodies and sweatshirts provide ample space to print detailed artwork, typography, or exclusive graphics, helping POD sellers create outstanding holiday products while maintaining core products that sell well all year round, balancing short-term and long-term revenue.

What Should I Notice When Designing Christmas Sweatshirts and Hoodies to Sell?

Designing Christmas hoodies and sweatshirts starts with a compelling piece of artwork, but comfort, fit, and quality define the customer experience, especially during the holiday season when expectations are higher. Here are some key points to keep in mind:

Quality and Comfort

Customers want shirts that are soft, durable, and warm. Look for premium cotton or cotton blends, fleece linings, and mid-weight fabrics for a premium feel. Smooth, tightly woven fabrics also help prints look sharper and last longer, which directly impacts the customer experience.

Size and Fit

Clear sizing information helps reduce returns. Many Christmas collections use unisex sizing to reach a wider audience. Besides, product descriptions should accurately reflect: loose, fitted, or true to size, creating transparency and trust.

Reviews and Reputation

Customers often look at reviews before making a purchase decision. Emphasize positive feedback and a commitment to quality standards. A strong reputation helps turn first-time customers into loyal customers, which is especially important during the busy holiday season.

Shipping and Delivery

Delivery times are crucial during the holiday season. Set clear expectations for order processing and delivery times, and prepare your store for peak season to avoid delays, ensure a smooth shopping experience, and keep customers happy.

FAQs

1. What is the best printing method for custom hoodies and sweatshirts?

The best printing method depends on the material and design, but DTG (direct to fabric) is the most popular choice in POD models. This printing method for beautiful color, the ability to handle complex designs, and no minimum quantity requirements. For large orders or designs with few colors, screen printing is more cost-effective. If you want to cover the entire surface of the product, AOP (all-over print) is the optimal choice.

2. How do I create a hoodie or sweatshirt design if I’m not an artist?

To create unique designs, you don’t need to be a real artist; you just need to be creative and have a spirit of learning. Here are some suggestions for you:

• Use ready-made designs or templates from Canva, Kittl, and Creative Fabrica.
• Use AI design generators like Midjourney, DALL·E to create artwork quickly.
• Hire freelance designers on Fiverr or Upwork if you want more professional designs.

3. What is the difference between hoodies and sweatshirts?

The main difference lies in the structure:

• Hoodie: has a hood, usually has a front pocket (kangaroo pocket), a more youthful and sporty style.
• Sweatshirt: no hood, simple design, easy to coordinate with many outfits, suitable for layering in cold weather.

Both are made from similar materials (cotton, fleece…), but hoodies are usually warmer thanks to the hood.

4. What makes a custom hoodie and sweatshirt sell well?

Good selling designs often have:

• Soft, warm, durable materials create a comfortable experience for customers.
• Beautiful and trendy designs such as Christmas themes, careers, pets, memes, and hobbies.
• Clear size charts, reduced returns.
• Professional mockups create a sense of trust.
• Fast and on-time delivery, especially during the holiday season.

Design attracts customers, but quality, comfort, and experience are what keep them coming back.