Christmas Bath Towels (2026): Real Red and Green Egyptian Cotton Towels, Festive Hand Towels, and the Gift Bundles Worth Buying

The Short Version

Every December my bathroom gets two snowman hand towels, a reindeer towel my daughter picked out at Target in 2022, and a golden retriever who likes to pull them off the ring. The towels are cute. They are not good towels.

For years I assumed that was the whole category. Christmas towels were thin printed things you put out for three weeks and packed away. Then real Christmas bath towels started showing up: solid garnet red and forest green in proper Egyptian cotton, sold as full sets and bundles, built to be used every day from Thanksgiving to March. That changes the maths completely.

So this guide is in two halves. First, the real Christmas bath towels and bundles, the ones that are actually towels. Second, the printed and embroidered hand towels that are decor, and which of those are worth the $10 to $40.

🏆 Want the same cotton in white, grey or brown for the rest of the year? See: Best Egyptian Cotton Towels of 2026 →

What “Christmas Towels” Actually Are

Walk into Target or Kohl’s in November and you’ll find a wall of them. Almost all of it falls into four buckets, and only one of them is a real towel.

Printed hand towels. The bulk of the category. Cotton or cotton-poly terry, usually 16 by 26 inches or a bit smaller, with a screen-printed design: snowflakes, plaid, trucks with trees, “Merry Christmas” in script. They run $5 to $15. Most don’t list a GSM. When I’ve weighed the ones in my house, they come in around 350 to 400 GSM, which is a gym towel weight.

Embroidered hand towels. A step up. A plain terry or waffle hand towel with an embroidered tree, wreath, or monogram. Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, Lands’ End, and a lot of Etsy sellers live here. $20 to $45 each. The towel underneath is often decent cotton, so these are the ones you can actually use.

Printed bath towel sets. Full-size bath towels with a Christmas print. I’d skip these every time. The printed ones feel thin after a body dries off with them twice, and a reindeer the size of a bath towel is a lot of reindeer.

Solid red and green bath towels in real cotton. This is the bucket that didn’t really exist at the quality end until recently. A deep red or forest green bath towel in proper long-staple cotton is a Christmas towel from Thanksgiving to New Year’s and simply a nice dark towel for the rest of the winter. If you’re going to spend real money on Christmas bath towels, this is the only bucket worth it.

Real Christmas Bath Towels: Maroon and Dark Green Egyptian Cotton

Kemet Cotton built a Christmas collection this year out of its Signature line, which is the 600 GSM zero-twist Egyptian cotton I’ve recommended in white for a while. The only thing that changed is the colour. Two of them.

Maroon is a deep garnet red, closer to a good Cabernet than to a fire-engine Santa red. In person it’s the colour of the velvet ribbon on an expensive wreath. Against white tile and brass taps it looks like a hotel at Christmas, and it hides the mascara and foundation marks that holiday guests leave on white towels.

Dark Green is a true forest green, the colour of a fir tree rather than a bright Kelly green. It’s the calmer of the two, and it’s the one I’d choose if I wanted the towels out from November to March, because a stack of forest green towels reads as winter, not specifically as Christmas.

The towel itself is the part that matters. It’s 100% Egyptian cotton with the Cotton Egypt Association’s Gold Seal (licence 1624 is on the product page), woven zero-twist at 600 GSM. Zero-twist means the yarn isn’t tightly spun, so the loops are soft from the first wash without any chemical softener, and 600 GSM is the midweight that dries overnight in a normal bathroom. That last point matters more in December than any other month, when the house is full and every towel is in constant rotation.

Every piece comes in both colours: bath towels (28 by 55 inches), bath sheets (35 by 63), hand towels (16 by 28) and washcloths (12 by 12). Here’s what the singles and sets cost, at sale pricing on October 17, 2026:

The honest cons. These were pre-order when I checked: Dark Green ships from October 29 and Maroon from November 2 to 4, so you’re buying a few weeks ahead rather than tomorrow. $93.95 for two bath towels is more than any printed set at Target. They’re direct-only, there’s no monogramming, and sale pricing moves, so the numbers above are a snapshot. And this is a 2025 brand, so nobody can show you a five-year-old set yet, although the 30-day return window covers the “not the red I pictured” problem.

Shop Kemet’s Christmas towels in Maroon and Dark Green →

The Christmas Bundles, and Which One to Buy

The bundles are where the Christmas collection makes the most sense, because a towel bundle is a complete gift and a full bathroom in one box. All six come in Maroon or Dark Green, and the pricing works out meaningfully cheaper per piece than buying sets.

My picks, by situation:

Gift for a couple or a new homeowner: the Essential Bundle at $149.95. Two of everything, one colour, done. It’s the same price as six Pottery Barn embroidered hand towels and it’ll be in use in July.

You’re hosting Christmas: the Essential Family Bundle at $274.95 works out to about $23 a piece across twelve pieces, and it means the guest bath and the kids’ bath both get fresh red or green towels without you buying two separate sets. If you have a lot of people staying, the Family Spa Bundle’s eight bath towels at $349.95 is the one.

Your own main bathroom: the Complete Bundle at $374.95 is the full set including bath sheets. It’s the most money, but it’s also the last towel purchase that bathroom needs for a few years.

A word on mixing. Buy one colour per bathroom. Maroon in the guest bath and Dark Green in the family bath is lovely. Maroon and Dark Green stacked together on one shelf looks like a Christmas sweater.

See all six Christmas bundles →

Christmas Hand Towels: The Decorative Layer

Now the other half. Hand towels are where the printed and embroidered holiday designs live, and they’re worth buying as long as you know what you’re getting.

For the guest bathroom: embroidered, or a real towel in a Christmas colour

Guests are going to dry their hands on it, so it needs to work as a towel. Embroidered designs on real terry hold up to repeated washing far better than a printed graphic, which cracks and fades by the third Christmas.

Pottery Barn’s holiday embroidered hand towels are the ones I’ve been happiest with. They’re on a proper cotton terry, the stitching is dense, and the designs are restrained (a single wreath, a small tree) rather than a scene. Williams Sonoma’s holiday towels are similar and skew a little more traditional. Both sell out of the popular designs by early December, every single year.

The alternative I’ve switched to this year: a solid Maroon or Dark Green hand towel in the same Egyptian cotton as the bath towels, $55.95 for two from Kemet. No print to fade, a towel that actually dries a guest’s hands, and it still reads as Christmas on the ring next to a white stack. If you want a design, buy the embroidered one. If you want it to last, buy the solid.

If you want them personalised, Lands’ End will monogram most of their holiday towels. See our monogrammed towels guide for how the stitching compares across brands.

For kids: the printed ones, and buy two

My kids want the truck with the tree on top. They don’t care about GSM. For kids’ bathrooms, the $8 Target printed hand towel is the right answer, and buy two of the same design so one can be in the wash. Target’s Wondershop line and Kohl’s holiday sets are the usual sources. Amazon has the widest range if you want a specific character or a matching bath towel and hand towel pair.

Shop kids’ Christmas towel sets on Amazon →

For a big family bathroom: multi-packs

Kohl’s and Walmart both sell holiday hand towels in 2-packs and 4-packs for the price of one Pottery Barn towel. The quality is what you’d expect. For a half-bath that gets heavy traffic at a party, that’s fine. Rotate them and they’ll last two or three seasons.

Red and Green Without the Theme Park Look

A few rules I’ve landed on after some mistakes.

One Christmas colour per bathroom, plus white. Maroon bath towels on the bar, white hand towels or washcloths underneath, one printed towel on the ring. Or Dark Green towels with a white bath mat. The white is what makes the colour look chosen.

Let the towel be the colour, not the print. A stack of garnet towels does more for the room than any snowflake print. If you have the solid towels, you can skip the printed hand towel entirely and the bathroom still looks like Christmas.

Match the metal. Maroon wants brass and warm wood. Dark Green is happy with black, chrome or brass. Both look wrong against pink-beige tile, so if that’s your bathroom, go with white towels and a red hand towel instead.

Bath mat. Kemet’s bath mat comes in Pure White, Dark Brown, Beige and a Pistachio Green, not in the Christmas colours, so a white mat under red or green towels is the clean answer. Our bath mats guide covers it.

Keep the printed towel as the accent. My reindeer towel still goes out. It just hangs next to Maroon now instead of carrying the whole room on its own.

Do Red and Green Towels Bleed? (Washing and Care)

Dark towels and printed towels need slightly different handling, so here’s both.

Solid red and green towels. Deep dyes on long-staple cotton are stable once they’ve settled, but the first wash or two can release a little excess dye. Wash new red or green towels on their own in cold or warm water, with a half cup of white vinegar in the rinse and no bleach. After the second wash they can go in with other darks. Skip fabric softener (it coats the loops and the towel stops absorbing) and dry on medium. Egyptian cotton gets softer with every wash, so the towels you unpack in November will feel better by Christmas Day.

Printed and embroidered towels. These die from heat, not from washing. Cold or warm water, never hot; no bleach, no softener; inside out for embroidered towels so the stitching doesn’t snag; low heat or hang dry. Wash them before you store them, because hand oils and soap residue yellow over eleven months in a closet.

For the full routine, how to wash towels covers it, and why towels smell musty covers what to do if a towel comes out of storage smelling off.

Christmas Towels as Gifts

Towels are a genuinely good gift. They’re also easy to get wrong, so three rules.

Give the set, not the single. One bath towel is a strange gift. A 6-piece bundle is a complete thing. The Christmas Essential Bundle is $149.95 in Maroon or Dark Green, and if you’d rather give a neutral, the same bundle in Pure White is the same price in Kemet’s main range. Everything ships free in the US over $99 with duties included, and unused items can be returned within 30 days, which covers the “wrong colour” problem.

Pick the colour from their bathroom, not from the season. Maroon for a warm, traditional house. Dark Green for a modern or natural one. White if you genuinely don’t know.

Fold one festive hand towel on top. A $20 embroidered holiday towel on top of a bundle turns a practical gift into a Christmas gift. It’s the wrapping paper, basically.

On delivery: the Christmas colours were pre-order when I checked, with Dark Green shipping from October 29 and Maroon from November 2 to 4, and in-stock items ship in one to two business days after that. Kemet doesn’t publish a holiday order-by date, and December shipping is slow everywhere, so order by late November if the gift has to be under the tree.

Shop the Christmas bundles →

How to Store Seasonal Towels

If you do go with printed towels, or you’d rather pack the red away in January, here’s what makes it work:

1. Wash and fully dry everything first. A slightly damp towel in a sealed bin for eleven months is how you get the musty smell that won’t wash out.
2. Use a breathable bag, not a plastic tub. Cotton canvas or a pillowcase. Plastic traps moisture.
3. Fold flat, don’t roll. Rolling creases embroidery.
4. Add a cedar block or a lavender sachet. It keeps the towels from picking up closet smell.
5. Store them somewhere dry. Not the bathroom. Not the basement.

The solid red and green towels don’t need any of this, which is half the argument for them. Mine are staying on the bar until the daffodils come up.

What to Skip

A few things I’ve bought and regretted, so you don’t have to:

Printed Christmas bath towel sets. Thin, hard to store, and you’ll be sick of the reindeer by the 27th.

“Luxury” holiday towels with no fibre or GSM listed. If the listing talks about the design for three paragraphs and never says what the towel is made of, it’s polyester-heavy. It’ll feel slick, not soft.

Anything with glitter print. It sheds into the dryer lint trap for the rest of the towel’s life.

Red and green in the same stack. One or the other. Your bathroom is not a wrapping-paper aisle.

The Bottom Line

If you want Christmas bath towels you’ll still be happy with in February, buy real towels in a Christmas colour, not printed ones. Kemet’s Christmas collection is the one I’d order: 600 GSM certified Egyptian cotton in a garnet Maroon or a forest Dark Green, $93.95 for two bath towels, and the 6-piece Essential Bundle at $149.95 is the towel gift I’d actually give. Order early, because both colours were pre-order with late October and early November ship dates.

Then spend $8 to $40 on the printed or embroidered hand towels for the fun of it. Hang the reindeer next to the garnet. Everybody wins, including the dog.

Related Reading

• Fall Bath Towels: Autumn and Halloween Colours
• Decorative Bath Towels: The Ones You Can Actually Use
• Best Bath Towel Sets: 6-Piece, 8-Piece and 12-Piece
• Best White Bath Towels