How many Christmas cards to order

Count households (one per address), then add about 10%. A family of four at one address gets one card. If your list has 50 households, order around 55. The rest of this page shows how to get a reliable household count from your list, which is the part that decides whether you order too few.

The rule and where it comes from

Shutterfly's article how many Christmas cards does the average person send out (read October 17, 2026) gives the rule I use here: order around 10% more cards than the number of households on your final list. It says 20 to 50 cards is a common range, with 15 to 20 for people who write mostly to immediate family and close friends, and 50 to 100 for a wide circle. It also says there is no right number.

I'd use the extra for people you remember late, an address that changes, a card you spoil while writing, and a spare for the neighbor who drops one off.

Order table

The first two columns are Shutterfly's examples. The last column is how many label sheets that many addresses fill on the two sheet types the label printer on this site supports.

Labels only cover the households themselves, so buy label sheets for the household count.

Getting a true household count

The mistake that costs people a second order is counting names. My approach is to count from the list in four passes.

1. Start from last year. Copy last year's list, or the Received column of it. Anyone who sent you a card and was not on the list belongs on this one.
2. Merge by address. Two siblings who share a flat, parents and a grown child at home, a couple with different last names: one envelope per address, so one row. Put "The Garcia Family" on the row instead of four first names.
3. Split by address. The opposite also happens. Separated parents, a college student with a dorm address, and grandparents who winter somewhere else may each need their own card.
4. Count only rows with an address. A name with no address yet is not a card you can mail. Count it separately as "pending" and chase it.

That gives you three numbers: households with an address (ready), households pending, and your 10% spare. Order for the first two together, plus the spare. If the pending ones never answer, you are left with a few unused cards and nothing missing.

A worked example

A list has 62 names. Merging siblings and families at one address brings it to 41 households. Splitting two couples who now live apart makes it 43. Six of those have no address yet, so 37 are ready and 6 are pending. Order for 43 plus 10%: 43 × 1.1 = 47.3, so 48 cards. Two label sheets of either kind hold all 43 addresses (60 labels on Avery 5160, 48 on A4), so the pending six do not change the sheet count.

When the number is still a guess

• Order after the address request has had a week or two to come back. The count is much tighter than at the start. See how to collect addresses.
• If you are unsure about the 10%, I'd round up to the next pack size the shop offers. In my view a second small order later is a hassle and may cost more per card.
• Remember cards that are not mailed: a few for the teacher, the host of a party, a neighbor you will meet in person.
• Plan postage with the same number. Cards going abroad have to leave sooner, see when to mail Christmas cards in 2026.

Let the list do the counting

On the card list on this site, each household is one entry, and the host page shows how many people you have and how many have no address yet. Those two numbers are the ready and pending counts from above. Free, no account.

Start a card list

More: which columns a card list needs, tracking sent and received cards and printing the labels; also what postage costs in 2026.