20 Christmas Email Subject Lines To Get Your Emails Read

The Christmas season is here, and beehiiv is here to deliver the email marketing goods. We have assembled a list of 20 of the best Christmas email subject lines for your holiday marketing.

It’s tough standing out in your audience’s inbox at the best of times, but the Christmas season takes that competition to a whole new level. You only get one chance to have your audience read your emails, and your subject line is the first domino in the process. If it falls flat, is too generic, or is too boring, you will see your open and engagement metrics slump.

Let’s improve your open rates and help keep your engagement high this Christmas season with the 20 best Christmas email subject lines.

Christmas Email Subject Line Frameworks

At beehiiv, we stress the importance of frameworks instead of copying templates. Frameworks allow you to craft your own subject lines and come up with unique subject lines every time on your own.

A few frameworks to use to aid you in creating your Christmas or holiday-themed email subject lines are:

The Time-Sensitive Framework

With the Time-Sensitive Framework, you are highlighting newsletter content that is timely to your audience. It’s a newsletter that contains something that must be read now.

Examples of a time-sensitive subject line include:

• Best discounts on Christmas gifts this weekend

• Invitation to our virtual holiday party

With the above examples, you can see that your audience would be drawn to open their email immediately to avoid missing out. If your newsletter contains time-sensitive information, consider highlighting that in your subject line to encourage immediate action in reading your newsletter.

The Numbers Framework

For some subjects, numbers say more than words. In a condensed subject line, saying more with fewer characters is great.

• How I saved $500 on my holiday shopping

• My Christmas side hustle that made $2,000 this month

As you can see from our examples, the numbers are vivid. Your readers will immediately relate to saving $500 or making an extra $2,000 during the holidays, which draws interest and open rates. This framework works best if you have concrete numbers to use from your newsletter body.

The Targeted Framework

Established newsletters will have analytics to draw on to help you segment your subscriber list. When you segment your list, you can become much more specific in the interests of those readers and appeal to their needs more directly.

Segmented lists allow you to narrow the focus of your subject lines to target a specific segment and increase the open rate of your newsletter. Segmented email sends increase open rates by an average of 14% and clicks by 100%.

Examples of targeted subject lines would be:

• Parents, here’s how to save money this Christmas

• Attention Christmas chefs, time-saving tips for Christmas dinner

With our examples of Targeted Framework subject lines, we are targeting specific audiences that allow you to grab your reader’s attention with content that’s specifically targeted to them.

The Surprise Framework

Who doesn’t love a surprise? With the Surprise Framework, you give your audience a taste of what they are going to receive inside your email newsletter.

Similar to how you might build a newsletter list on your website with a lead magnet, this is a lead magnet in your subject line to get readers to open and read your newsletter.

Examples of a surprise subject line could be:

• Holiday crafts for your kids (including a free template)

• How to cook a turkey - with a bonus free recipe

With these examples, you are leading your readers into the newsletter by offering something of value. With a surprise email subject line, your readers will be tempted to find out what the surprise is and want to open the email to find out more.

If you are still stuck and need some inspiration to start with your holiday-themed subject lines, please check out these lists we’ve put together.

20 Christmas Email Subject Lines

The beehiiv elves were hard at work on this one! We've come up with the 20 best Christmas email subject lines for your inspiration.

Funny Christmas Email Subject Lines

1. We hope your Christmas is as good as ours!

2. On the First Day of Christmas {Company} gave to me…

3. Did you hear? Rudolph is on the run!

4. I hear you’re Santa’s favorite this year🎅

5. 🎅Ho Ho Hope you’ve been good this year🎁

Merry Christmas Email Subject Lines

1. 🎅🏻Merry Christmas from {Company}

2. What are you dreaming about this Christmas?

3. Ho ho ho! {Company} wishes you a Merry Christmas🎄

4. Hi {Customer Name}, wishing you a Merry Christmas

5. Just a quick email to say…

Happy Holidays Email Subject Lines

1. {Customer name} have a Happy Holiday Season!

2. From our family to yours {Customer Name}, Happy Holidays

3. Happy holidays from all of us at {Company}❄️

4. It’s finally here! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

5. Hey {Customer Name} happy holidays and have a great New Year!

December Email Subject Lines

1. ⛄️It’s starting to feel a lot like Christmas❄️

2. What are you looking forward to this holiday season?

3. Let the festivities begin!

4. 5 things to remember this holiday season

5. What we’re planning for in 2023🎉

Crafting Your Own Christmas Email Subject Lines

Hopefully, our list of subject lines helped you find some inspiration for your emails, but if you’re looking for some tips on how to write your own, we can help you with that too.

Keep in mind, that just because it’s a Christmas email doesn’t mean best practices for subject lines are completely forgotten. So let’s discuss some of the things to remember when crafting your own holiday-themed subject lines.

Make Your Subject Lines Personalized

Personalization has become incredibly important in all forms of digital marketing, and your email subject lines are no exception.

Adding a touch of personalization by using your subscriber's name will make your email instantly stand out from the sea of other holiday emails.

Ariyh has compiled a list of statistics on the increased performance of personalized emails. By adding the first name of a subscriber to the subject line of an email open rates were increased by 6%, 23%, and 20% in three separate studies. Clickthrough rates improved by up to 32% and unsubscribe rates decreased by as much as 17%.

Adding the first name to your subject lines is incredibly easy to do, and doing so could mean a dramatic boost to your email metrics.

Remember To Prioritize Mobile

According to Litmus, mobile email clients were responsible for opening 41.9% of all emails. That tops webmail by 2% and desktop clients by 23.7%. That’s a market share you can’t forget to optimize for.

For mobile, you’ll need to keep your email subject lines between 30 and 40 characters. Be sure to account for all characters including spaces, punctuation, and emojis.

Consider Emojis In The Subject Line

The decision to use emojis will come down to a tone of voice and brand positioning decision. But, emojis can be a great way to make your emails stand out.

The vast majority of emails do not use emojis. By using some in your subject lines, you can help to draw the eye and attention of your audience to your emails.

Also, tying into the last point on prioritizing mobile, emojis may allow you to shorten your subject line. Using a Santa, Christmas tree, or Menorah, your subject line can clearly indicate festive content without using valuable characters.

Biggest Mistakes With Holiday Subject Lines

There are some things you will want to avoid doing with your holiday-themed subject lines to avoid the dreaded lump of coal beneath your marketing tree.

Not Maintaining Brand Tone of Voice

You chose your brand’s tone of voice and positioning for a reason. It’s great for the most formal of companies to show a human side now and then, but avoid the temptation of getting carried away.

Christmas emails can be difficult to get right. There is a fine line between generic emails lost in the noise and emails that are too far over the line, where they are no longer in line with your brand.

Being Too Generic

Inbox attention is a competition. Being too generic with your Christmas emails will likely lead to being drowned out in today’s busy inbox.

For example, in the subject line samples we provided above, we have added emojis or personalization to make otherwise generic subject lines stand out.

Consider opening your email in the morning and seeing “Merry Christmas” in a filled morning inbox. Would anything about Merry Christmas excite you to open it? It’s unlikely.

However, take that same subject line and add emojis or a name to it and suddenly you’re standing out over your inbox competition.

Poor Email Deliverability

Overuse of spam words and images, or having poor engagement metrics, could land your emails in the spam folder.

Here at beehiiv, Nicola has put together a fantastic guide to improve your email deliverability this holiday season.

Closing Thoughts On December Email Subject Lines

The emails you send in December are, at their core, not any different than emails you send in any other month of the year. All the same tenants apply: using thought-provoking phrases, personalization, and emojis to stand out is not exclusive to the holidays.

What is different at this time of year is the competition. From Black Friday and Cyber Monday, through Christmas and New Year's Day, this is the busiest shopping season of the year, and every retailer your readers are subscribed to is also bombarding their inboxes with the same types of subject lines.

You need to do something to stand out from that noise and grab your reader's attention. Following the advice above will help you on your way to doing just that.

Here at beehiiv we wish you all the best this holiday season and hope you have a great New Year!

Let’s get out there and ace those Christmas emails with beehiiv - start free today!