Christmas bedding is a duvet cover set printed with a festive design, such as tartan, snowflakes, reindeer or a winter village, that goes on the bed for December only. Most UK households put it on in the first week of December and take it off by Twelfth Night on 5 January. This guide covers when to change over, five ways to style the bed, and which size to buy for a child.
When should you put Christmas bedding on?
Put Christmas bedding on in the first week of December, usually the same weekend the tree goes up. That gives you about five weeks of use before Twelfth Night on 5 January, which is when tradition says the decorations come down.
Two other changeover dates come up a lot. Some families wait until Christmas Eve so the bed feels like a surprise for the children. Others start in late November, when the shops do. Neither is wrong. If you only own one Christmas set, though, a 1 December start means it'll go through four or five washes, so wash it at 30°C and skip the tumble dryer's hot setting to keep the print bright.
Taking it off is easier to time. Swap back to your everyday set on 5 or 6 January, wash the Christmas set, and store it folded inside one of its own pillowcases so the pieces stay together until next year.
How do you style a Christmas bed?
Style a Christmas bed in five steps: pick one printed duvet cover set, keep everything else plain, add one textured throw, use two or three cushions at most, and finish with a single light source. The print does the work, so the rest of the bed should stay quiet.
- Start with one printed set. A busy pattern, like tartan or a patchwork of Christmas motifs, looks best when it's the only print on the bed. Our Hearthside Christmas duvet cover sets come in 10 designs, from Tartan Snowflake to Winter Village.
- Keep the sheet plain. A white or cream fitted sheet lets the duvet cover stand out. Red or green sheets compete with it.
- Add one throw. A chunky cream knit or an oat wool blanket folded across the bottom third of the bed adds warmth without adding another pattern.
- Limit the cushions. Two or three in plain colours pulled from the print (cream, forest green, deep red) look finished. Six looks cluttered and ends up on the floor every night.
- Use one warm light. A bedside lamp with a warm bulb or a battery candle lantern makes the room feel like December. Real candles near bedding are a fire risk, so leave them out of the bedroom.
Reversible sets give you two looks from one purchase. The Nordic Christmas and Winter Chalet designs have a different print on the back, so you can turn the duvet over halfway through the month.
What size Christmas bedding for a child?
A child in a standard single bed needs a single duvet cover, which measures 137x200 cm and fits a 135x200 cm single duvet. A child in a toddler bed or cot bed needs a 120x150 cm cot bed cover instead, because a single cover is far too big for a cot bed duvet.
The single sets in our Christmas range come with one pillowcase. Doubles, kings, super kings and emperors come with two. If you're buying for a teenager in a small double or double bed, go by the duvet size rather than the bed: a double duvet is 200x200 cm and takes a double cover. Our UK duvet sizes chart lists every size in centimetres.
For the rest of the room, a festive cushion on the sofa carries the theme downstairs. Our guide to styling Christmas cushions on a sofa covers how many to use and which colours sit well with red. And if you're changing the whole bed at once, the correct order of bedding layers walks through each layer from the mattress up.
Written by the Adam Home team at Ensor Mill, Rochdale.
