Christmas 3D Prints to Make and Sell in 2026

Christmas falls on a Friday this year, which leaves about ten weeks from mid-October to print for your own tree, for gifts or for a stand at a holiday fair. That sounds like a lot until you add up the hours. Some Christmas prints take under two hours; a full advent calendar takes about thirty. This guide sorts our Christmas designs by what they are, how long they take and whether you need an AMS, so you can plan the season instead of finding out in December.

Everything here is live on our designs page. Each design downloads as a print-ready 3MF project (plate, colors and settings already saved in Bambu Studio) plus STL files for any other slicer. New to 3MF files? Our plain-English guide to 3MF files takes five minutes.

What can you 3D print for Christmas?

Most Christmas prints land in four groups. Knowing the group tells you a lot about print time, price and who buys it.

• Things for the tree. Flat ornaments and a tree topper. Ornaments are the quickest Christmas print there is and the easiest to give away.
• Things that glow. Lanterns and little houses that hold a battery LED tealight. They look good in a window and on a fair table, and they take longer to print.
• Things for the mantel and table. Stocking holders, an advent calendar, a candy-cane-striped snake to set by the cookie plate.
• Small gifts and stocking stuffers. Keychains that click, clack or slide, and a folding game. Cheap to make, easy to hand to a kid.

A good Christmas print reads as "Christmas" from across a room, survives being handled, and doesn't need perfect color matching. Red, green, ivory, gold and black cover almost everything below.

How long do Christmas 3D prints take?

Here are the numbers, read from each design's own project files. Times are Bambu Studio's estimates for the saved projects on a Bambu Lab P2S, so your printer may run a little faster or slower. "AMS" is Bambu Lab's automatic material system, the box that lets a printer switch colors by itself in the middle of a layer. Not sure you need one? Do you need an AMS? explains how to tell.

The number worth remembering: all six ornaments from the Christmas Ornament Set print on one plate in 2 hours 22 minutes with 31 g of filament. That's about 5 g per ornament. If your spool cost $20 per kilogram, that's about ten cents of plastic per ornament; use your own spool price for your own math.

What are the best Christmas decorations to 3D print?

"Best" depends on what you want from it, so here is each design with the honest reason to pick it.

Ornaments, for speed and personalization. The ornament set gives you a snowflake, a snowman, a candy cane, a gingerbread man, a tree and a red ribbon banner with a blank panel for a name. Each is about 65 to 69 mm tall and 4 mm thick, with a loop and a 3.5 mm hole for ribbon or a hook. You type the name onto the banner in Bambu Studio with its text tool; the guide in the download gives the letter size that fits. A name turns a ten-cent ornament into a gift. For all three ornament sets, the filament-swap steps and the name banner in detail, see our guide to 3D printed Christmas ornaments.

A tree topper, for the one piece everyone sees. The Angel Tree Topper is a 170 mm angel whose ivory robe slides over the top branch. Her silver wings snap on by hand and fold flat for storage. The full-color body needs an AMS because the gold hair and star share layers with the ivory face; without one, print the body in a single color.

A lantern, for a window that glows. Our Modular Lantern Frame is a frame, roof and carry handle you print once. Decorative plates slide into it, and a battery LED light inside makes them glow. There are five Christmas plate sets: Silent Night (Santa's sleigh, a snowman, a village, a tree), Candy Cane Lane, Holy Night (nativity scenes), Nutcracker Suite and North Pole. Each plate is 90 × 120 mm: a light backing color with black artwork on top, made with one filament change after layer 3. Swap the plates and the same lantern frame works for the next season. Our guide to 3D printed Christmas lanterns covers glow colors, assembly and safe lighting.

Village houses, for a mantel scene. The Village Tealight Houses are a red cottage, an ivory church, a green shop and a gingerbread house, each with a lift-off snow roof over a battery LED tealight. Every print is one color, so no AMS and no color changes are needed. The whole village is eight prints, about 10 h 46 min and 300 g.

Stocking holders, for the mantel itself. The Christmas Stocking Holders are a nutcracker soldier, a snowman, a tree and a gingerbread house, 13 to 15 cm tall on a 90 × 100 mm base. Coin pockets under the base, closed with a snap-on lid, add the weight, and each holder is designed for a 500 g stocking. Our guide to 3D printed stocking holders covers the weight, the hook and where to set them on the mantel.

An advent calendar, for the big project. The Advent Calendar is a Christmas tree with 24 pull-out drawers numbered 1 to 24, a gold star on top and a stand it snaps into. It's about 200 mm wide and 240 mm tall and prints with no supports. It's also the longest job here at almost 30 hours, so it's the one to start in October, not December.

What are good 3D printed Christmas gifts?

Small things that do something. A keychain that moves gets played with, which is the whole point of a stocking stuffer.

• The Santa Chimney Slider is a snowy brick chimney, about 45 × 76 mm, with a little Santa who slides down the middle and clicks into three stops. The track prints in place, so there's nothing to assemble except pressing Santa on once. It's the quickest gift here at 1 h 45 min.
• The Gnome Clicker and the Ornament Bulb Clicker both click and spring back when you press the button (the gnome's hat tip, the ornament's gold cap). The springs are printed, so there's no bought hardware, and the two halves snap together by hand.
• The Chattering Nutcracker is a nutcracker soldier keychain whose chin swings open and clacks shut. In full color it needs a four-slot AMS and about 10 hours; in one color it prints in about 1 h 40 min with 24 g.
• The Peppermint Snake is a wiggly snake of peppermint candies that prints in one piece, already joined. Make one large 30 cm snake, or two or six smaller ones on a plate.
• The Christmas Four-in-a-Row is a two-player game with 21 ornament counters and 21 snowflakes, in a case that folds shut into a wrapped present. It's a weekend of printing, so it suits a bigger family gift better than a stocking.

For more ideas sorted by who they're for and how long they take, including the marble run, tealight houses and a gift card box, see our 3D printing gift ideas for Christmas.

Do you need an AMS to print Christmas decorations?

No, but it changes which version you print. There are three ways a design gets its colors:

• One color. Load a spool and print. The lantern frame and every village house work this way.
• A filament swap. The colors change only between layers, so you add a pause at the right layer, the printer stops, you change the spool and it carries on. The lantern plates (after layer 3), the snowflake, candy cane, gingerbread man and name banner ornaments, and the four-in-a-row grid's gold top band all work this way. Bambu Lab's wiki shows how to add the pause.
• An AMS. Two colors sit side by side in the same layer, so the printer has to switch by itself. The full-color snowman and tree ornaments, the angel's body, the clickers, the nutcracker, the Santa slider, the snake and the advent calendar's gold numbers need one.

Every design that needs an AMS for full color can still be printed in one color from the STL. A red snake or an all-ivory angel still looks finished. On the advent calendar, the one-color drawers keep their numbers because they are engraved.

When should you start printing for Christmas?

Now, longest job first. Add up the hours before you promise anyone anything:

1. October: the multi-day prints. The advent calendar (29 h 47 min) and the four-in-a-row (31 h 24 min) each tie up a printer for most of a weekend. The lantern frame (18 h 10 min) belongs here too.
2. Early November: the mid-size pieces. The tree topper, the village houses, the stocking holders and the lantern plates.
3. Mid November onward: the quick, repeatable prints. Ornaments, sliders, clickers and snakes, in batches, so you can top up stock or make a name ornament the week someone asks.

If you sell at holiday fairs, move everything about two weeks earlier, so your stock is ready before the first fair rather than the first weekend of December. Our guide to Thanksgiving 3D prints covers the fall designs if you want something on the table before Christmas.

Can you sell the Christmas decorations you 3D print?

Yes, with our designs. The 3MF Labs license lets you sell the physical prints you make, with no limit and no royalty. You can't share, upload, resell or give away the files themselves. Our page on selling 3D prints has the rest.

For a fair table, a mix of price points tends to work: something under a few dollars a kid can buy (an ornament, a slider), something mid-range (a clicker, a snake, a set of lantern plates), and one or two lit pieces that draw people over. A lantern glowing on the table does more than a sign.

Are 3D printed lanterns and tealight houses safe?

With battery LED lights, yes. Never use a real candle. PLA, the most common printing plastic, starts to soften at roughly 60 °C (JLC3DP), and a flame is far hotter than that. A battery tealight or LED fairy lights stay cool and still make the plates glow.

The same goes for anything left in a hot car or a sunny window: PLA can warp there. And keep small pieces, like ornament loops and the four-in-a-row counters, away from young children and pets.

Ready to pick? Browse all our designs, or start with the ornament set: two and a half hours from now you could have six ornaments on the tree.

Designs from this guide

$3.79 3ML-021 · Ornament set

Christmas Ornament Set

Six flat layered tree ornaments with bold black outlines: a snowflake, a snowman, a candy cane, a gingerbread man, a Christmas tree and a blank name banner you personalize. STL + 3MF · 8.7 MB View model $3.79 3ML-023 · Tree topper

Angel Tree Topper

A smiling angel for the top of the tree: an ivory robe that slides over the top branch, a gold bob and halo, a gold star in her hands and silver feathered wings that fold flat for storage. STL + 3MF · 2.2 MB View model $2.49 3ML-012 · Lantern frame

Modular Lantern Frame

The Modular Lantern's frame, roof and carry handle. Print it once, then slide in a set of panels for every season. STL + 3MF · 2.0 MB View model $3.79 3ML-007 · Lantern panels

Silent Night Lantern Panels

Four light-up Christmas scenes for our Modular Lantern: Santa's sleigh across the moon, a snowman, a snowy village and a Christmas tree. STL + 3MF · 4.0 MB View model $3.79 3ML-025 · Tealight houses

Village Tealight Houses

Four snowy little village houses that glow: a red cottage, an ivory church, a green shop and a gingerbread house, each with a lift-off snow roof over a battery LED tealight. STL + 3MF · 14 MB View model $5.99 3ML-016 · Mantel decor

Christmas Stocking Holders

Four weighted stocking holders for the mantel: a nutcracker soldier, a snowman, a Christmas tree and a gingerbread house. STL + 3MF · 9.2 MB View model $5.99 3ML-024 · Advent calendar

Advent Calendar

A Christmas tree advent calendar with 24 pull-out drawers numbered 1 to 24 in gold, red and ivory like a checkerboard, a gold star on top and a stand it snaps into. STL + 3MF · 9.2 MB View model $3.79 3ML-020 · Slider fidget

Santa Chimney Slider

A snowy brick chimney keychain with a little Santa who slides down the middle and clicks into three stops. STL + 3MF · 217 KB View model $3.79 3ML-019 · Fidget clicker

Gnome Clicker

A tall Christmas gnome with a long ivory beard and a red cone hat whose tip is a button that clicks and springs back, on a keyring loop. STL + 3MF · 4.5 MB View model $3.79 3ML-013 · Flexi snake

Peppermint Snake

A wiggly snake made of peppermint candies, with black eyes and a red tongue. It prints in one piece, already joined, so there's nothing to put together. STL + 3MF · 23 MB View model

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