Ugly Christmas Sweater: 2025 Edition
The Ugly Christmas Sweater Wallpaper Collection is back for 2025, woven together with 63,158 tiny stitches for the Mac and 20,765 more for iPhone.
This is the 4th year I have been releasing Mac & iPhone Ugly Christmas Sweater wallpapers, and it’s a wallpaper I both delight in and rue making, because when you are trying to colour, pattern, and organize nearly 65,000 layers, it gets very tedious and mind-numbing very fast. But I delight in the process because they’re just such fun wallpapers to look at and make a lovely wallpaper to rock for a few weeks during the holidays.
Buy the Collection - $3.99
The collection of Ugly Christmas Sweater Wallpapers is available below, free of charge and in full resolution, but if you can support the work I do, I am also making the collection available as a donation gift of $3.99.
The Ugly Christmas Sweater Wallpapers includes eight wallpapers for the Mac & iPhone in the following colours: Frost Blue, Orange Hearth, Pine Green, & Soot in both the Basic & Six Colours editions.
Read more about my approach to making wallpapers available for purchase over at The WinRAR Approach
DETAILS
Once purchased, a download link will be emailed to you to download the .zip file (167.5MB) containing all eight versions for your Mac & iPhone.
The digital download link will expire 24 hours after the first download. If your link expires and you need to redownload the files, please send me an email with your order number and I can send along a new link for you.
The updated Mac versions come in four gorgeous colours and two styles. One includes flecks of Apple’s classic six colours throughout, while the other keeps things basic with a cleaner palette of just three colours. This year, the Mac version includes the pixelated version of Apple’s “hello” message, which appeared on the Macintosh in 1984, while the iPhone version features the same Smiling Macintosh icon from 2024.
What is an Ugly Christmas Sweater?
One of the things I've learned while making these wallpapers is that the concept of an ugly Christmas sweater may be less widespread than I thought. Plenty of people have commented that the wallpapers don’t look ugly at all, which is very kind and also tells me the concept doesn’t always translate.
An Ugly Christmas Sweater is a deliberately over-the-top, kitschy holiday sweater that leans into exaggerated festive themes. People wear them for fun, humour, and nostalgia rather than fashion. They’re often visually loud, crammed with repeating icons or oversized graphics.
2025 Updates
This is very much a Snow Leopard release for the wallpapers, because while they look similar to last year's release, the entire backend process of making them has been updated. Five years ago, when I started these, I didn’t have the same skills in Sketch that I do now, and when it came to updating these wallpapers in 2023 and 2024, it became a massive undertaking. For example, I wasn't using colour profiles, which meant that if I wanted to change the colours of threads, I had to do it all manually, thread by thread. This year, all the colours are linked to a profile, so if I want to change a single colour, I can do so in a single click. This has allowed me to experiment with colours much more, which I think has resulted in my favourite palette of Ugly Christmas Sweater Wallpapers colours to date. Additionally, the threads were cleaned up, some patterns and contrasts were improved, and a few more tweaks were made to refresh this release for the holiday season.
Six Colour version on the left, Basic version on the right.
Each wallpaper for the Mac and iPhone is available in four colours: Frost Blue, Pine Green, Hearth Orange, and a much-requested dark version which I’m calling Soot (I think I did pretty well on the Christmas naming). And there are two versions of each colour: a six-colour version with the accent colours, and a more basic version that sticks to a palette of three colours.
Finally, as this is my last wallpaper for 2025 (the iPhone Air Internals are coming, I promise), I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for their support over this past year. This blog would not exist without your continued support. I wish everyone a very happy holiday season and many blessings and good fortunes in the new year.
Downloads
Frost Blue
Mac: Basic | Six Colours
iPhone: Basic | Six Colours
Pine Green
Mac: Basic | Six Colours
iPhone: Basic | Six Colours
Hearth Orange
Mac: Basic | Six Colours
iPhone: Basic | Six Colours
Soot
Mac: Basic | Six Colours
iPhone: Basic | Six Colours
SUPPORT
I’m a one-person operation, working in healthcare by day & running this site as a passion project in my off time.
If you enjoy my work (the articles, the wallpapers, my general demeanour… anything really), consider leaving a tip & supporting the site. Your support is incredibly appreciated & goes a long way to keep this site and the works I produce ad-free & free of charge.
Previous Ugly Christmas Sweater Wallpaper Archive
2020 | 2023 (Mac) | 2023 (iPhone) | 2024 (Mac) | 2024 (iPhone)
