Christmas is when a lot of people try AI photo tools for the first time: a festive portrait for a profile picture, a family card without booking a studio, a short clip of snow falling past the window. The good news is that these are some of the easiest prompts to get right, because the look is so familiar. The model already knows what fairy lights, a decorated tree and a knitted sweater look like; your job is to place you in the scene and keep your face intact.

Below are prompts for portraits, families and pets, greeting cards and short videos. Every photo prompt assumes you upload your own picture first.

Before you start: the photo and the identity line

Two things decide whether the result looks like you:

  • The photo. Front-facing or slightly angled, good light, face fully visible, no heavy filters. One clear photo per person beats a blurry group shot.
  • The identity line. End every prompt with a sentence telling the model what must not change. All the prompts below include one.

If you have not written photo-edit prompts before, our Nano Banana photo prompt guide explains why this matters and how to fix drift.

Festive portraits

Cosy living room

Nano Banana
Place the person from the photo on a sofa in a warm living room on Christmas evening, wearing a cream cable-knit sweater and holding a mug of hot chocolate with both hands. A decorated tree with warm white fairy lights glows behind them, slightly out of focus. Soft lamp light from the side, relaxed smile, medium shot at eye level with a shallow depth of field. Keep their face, hairstyle and skin tone exactly as in the photo.

A tested version with our own render is in the library as the cosy Christmas portrait.

Snowy street at dusk

Nano Banana
Show the person from the photo walking along a snowy old-town street at dusk, wearing a camel wool coat and a red scarf, light snow falling. Shop windows glow warm yellow behind them and strings of lights cross the street overhead. Three-quarter shot from slightly below, natural candid expression, the look of a 35mm film photo. Keep their face and hairstyle exactly as in the photo.

Glamour portrait

GPT Image
A festive studio portrait of the person in the uploaded photo, wearing a deep green velvet outfit, posed against a dark red backdrop with oversized gold and red ornaments hanging at different heights around them. Soft beauty lighting from the front, gentle sparkle in the background, elegant and joyful. Vertical 4:5 image. Keep the face and features exactly as in the photo.

Couples, families and pets

Couple under the lights

Nano Banana
Show the two people from the uploaded photos standing close together under a canopy of warm fairy lights at an outdoor Christmas market at night, both wearing winter coats and knitted hats, laughing at each other. Wooden market stalls and soft bokeh lights fill the background. Medium shot at eye level. Keep both people's faces exactly as in their photos.

For more ideas, the couple photo prompts hub includes a couple Christmas lights prompt with a render.

Matching family pajamas

Nano Banana
A family portrait of everyone in the uploaded photos sitting together on a staircase decorated with garland, all wearing matching red and green plaid pajamas. Morning light from a window, a dog lying on the bottom step, everyone smiling naturally. Wide shot that keeps every face clearly visible. Keep every person's face, hairstyle and skin tone exactly as in the photos.

Upload one clear photo per person if you can; group photos where faces are small give the model less to work with.

You and your pet by the tree

Nano Banana
The person and the dog from the uploaded photos sitting on the floor beside a decorated Christmas tree, the dog wearing a small red bandana and resting its head on the person's knee. Warm tree lights, wrapped presents around them, soft evening light. Close medium shot at floor level. Keep the person's face and the dog's markings and fur colour exactly as in the photos.

Christmas cards

Cards need text, and text needs care. Put the exact words in double quotes, say where they go and keep them short. Nano Banana Pro and GPT Image are the best choices for lettering.

GPT Image
A Christmas card design using the family from the uploaded photo, shown as a warm illustrated portrait in a gouache painting style, standing in front of a snowy cottage with lit windows. Across the top, the words "Merry Christmas" in elegant hand-lettered gold script. At the bottom, smaller text: "Love from [FAMILY NAME], [YEAR]". Cream paper texture, plenty of margin around the edges for printing. Vertical 2:3 card. Keep everyone recognisable.

For the message inside, the ChatGPT prompt generator can write a prompt for a short, personal card message: give it who the card is for and one thing that happened this year, and set the tone to friendly or playful.

Short Christmas videos

A festive clip works best as one simple shot with gentle motion. Use your festive portrait as the start frame, or describe the scene from scratch.

Veo
A cosy living room on Christmas Eve, a decorated tree with warm white lights in the corner and snow falling past a large window behind it. The camera pushes in slowly toward the tree as the lights twinkle gently. Warm, soft colour grade with deep shadows. Audio: a crackling fireplace and faint sleigh bells in the distance. Duration: 8 seconds.
Seedance
A gingerbread house on a wooden table, icing sugar falling on it like snow. Motion: the sugar drifts down slowly and settles on the roof. Camera: slow orbit around the house, close-up. Setting and light: dark kitchen, warm candle light from the left. Duration: 5 seconds.

To animate a photo you already made, open image to video, upload it as the start frame and write only the motion: "snow starts to fall, she looks up and smiles, the camera pushes in slowly". Our video prompt guide covers camera moves and audio lines in more detail.

Making your own variations

  • Change one element at a time. Swap the sweater colour or the room, keep the rest, and you get a consistent set for a card and a profile picture.
  • Turn a picture you love into a template. If you have a festive photo whose light and colours you want to reuse, image to prompt with "Style only" gives you a prompt with a [SUBJECT] slot.
  • Let the generator write it. Describe the idea in a sentence on the image prompt generator or the video prompt generator, pick the model, and get a prompt in that model's format.

If you would rather not write prompts at all, the AI Christmas photoshoot in the studio takes your photos and a few choices and handles the prompt for you. For more seasonal and portrait ideas, browse the Gemini photo prompts hub.