Christmas Photo and Card Ideas for Your Dog or Cat

This guide covers the pet Christmas photo from both ends: how to get a real dog or cat to sit still in a Santa hat, which decorations should stay out of the picture, what to write on a card from your pet, and the moving version for when the hat won't stay on. That one needs a single photo of your pet and comes out as a 5-second vertical clip of it in a Santa hat by a lit tree, with a head tilt at the end. It costs from 10 credits, or from $6.39 without an account. It isn't free.

Getting a pet to hold still in a Santa hat

The hat is the hard part, so start before the day of the photo.

• Practise for a few days. Let your pet sniff the hat, put it on for a second, give a treat and take it off. Then two seconds. Most of the battle is the first time the hat touches its head.
• Pick the hour. After a long walk and before dinner: tired enough to sit, hungry enough to care about treats.
• Get down to its level. Lie on the floor, hold a treat right above the lens, and make the noise it can't ignore (the crinkle of the treat bag usually works) just before you shoot. That's when the ears go up.
• Use burst mode and window light. A flash makes eyes glow and can startle a nervous pet.
• Bring a helper. One person fixes the hat and holds the treat, the other only shoots.
• Stop while it's still fun. A few minutes is plenty.

RSPCA Australia puts it plainly: some dogs tolerate simple costumes, but cats generally aren't okay with being dressed up at all. Watch for freezing, panting, lip licking or the whites of the eyes showing, take the hat off straight away if you see them, and never leave a pet in a costume unattended. For a cat, photograph it curled up next to the hat. That still makes a card.

What to keep out of the picture

A tree, a bouquet and a pile of tinsel look great behind a pet, and some of them are a problem in front of one. The ASPCA's holiday safety tips list:

• Tinsel. Cats love to bat it and carry it, and swallowed tinsel can cause severe vomiting, a blocked digestive tract and dehydration, sometimes needing surgery.
• Lilies. Many lilies in holiday bouquets are highly toxic and can cause kidney failure in cats.
• Poinsettias. Milder: mild to moderate stomach irritation.
• Mistletoe and holly. Stomach upset and heart and circulation problems if eaten.
• Glass or plastic ornaments, whose shards can hurt the mouth and gut, and candles left burning.

Safer props: a plain knit blanket, an empty box in wrapping paper, your pet's own toy, and string lights far in the background with the cord out of reach. If your pet does eat something it shouldn't, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center is on (888) 426-4435.

What to write on a card from your pet

A card "from the dog" or "from the cat" gets more smiles than one from you. Some lines to start from:

• "Merry Christmas from Pepper, who has been good most of the time."
• "Naughty list? Never heard of it."
• "I asked Santa for one thing: your sandwich."
• From a cat: "I only knocked over the tree once this year."
• For a new pet: "Our first Christmas as a family of four paws."
• From the whole house: "Love from Sam, Ana and the dog who runs the place."

Sign it with a paw print (an ink pad made for pets, or just draw one) and the pet's name in big letters.

The moving version, no hat required

If the hat keeps sliding off, or the cat has made its feelings clear, use a normal photo and let the video do the dressing. The pet Christmas video template puts your dog or cat by a lit tree with wrapped presents, in a small red Santa hat; it looks into the camera, tilts its head and holds the pose. It stays a real animal on four paws, and the breed, fur colours and markings come from your photo.

Because the room comes from the template, the photo can be from anywhere: the sofa, the garden, last summer. No tree, tinsel or lilies need to be near your pet at all. What matters:

• Eye level, both ears in view, since the hat sits between them.
• The whole animal in frame, sharp and well lit.
• One pet per photo. Two pets? Make one each and send them together.

Add the card line in your phone's video editor, then send it to the family chat, or print a paper card with the still photo and put the video link on the back.

What it costs

Balanced is 10 credits at 480p and 20 at 720p. Premium goes up to 1080p: 20 credits at 480p, 40 at 720p and 70 at 1080p. Dog or cat, the price is the same. Without an account, one video starts at $6.39 at checkout; credit packs start at $7.92 for 20 credits, with no subscription. You can download it with a soft holiday tune or silent, with no watermark, and a failed render is refunded automatically.

Put a Santa hat on your pet →