Christmas Pregnancy Announcement Ideas: Tell Him First, Then the Family at the Table

Christmas has two announcements in it

The first announcement is private: he finds out from you, with nobody else in the room. The second is the family, your parents and his, brothers and sisters, and later the card list and everyone online. Pin boards are built for the second, because it is the one that photographs well.

Christmas puts both audiences in one house on one day, and it is tempting to fold them together: he opens a small box in front of everyone and finds out at the same moment as his mother. It makes a wonderful video. For him it is the biggest news of his life, with a dozen people watching to see how he takes it.

Once he knows, the family announcement becomes a plan you make together, two people trading looks across the table. For telling him at any time of year, sorted by the kind of man he is, we wrote ways to tell your husband you're pregnant. What follows is the Christmas version.

The calendar: a Christmas announcement is an early one

Here is the part the pin boards skip. Weeks of pregnancy are counted from the first day of your last period, not from the day you find out, so, as Cleveland Clinic explains, you are already about four weeks pregnant when you miss a period. Count forward from a positive test and Christmas lands early in the pregnancy:

These are rough counts for a cycle of about four weeks, and a due date is only an estimate: your doctor or midwife will give you yours.

That is where the habit of waiting comes from. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists calls the loss of a pregnancy before 13 completed weeks an early pregnancy loss, and says it is common, happening in about 10 of every 100 known pregnancies. Main Line Health, a Pennsylvania health system, adds that most miscarriages happen in the first trimester and that the risk falls sharply after it, which is why the traditional advice has been to keep quiet until around 14 weeks.

None of that is a reason to keep the news from him, only a reason to decide together whether the family hears it on December 25 or a few weeks later, which has its own section below. For whichever day you pick, start the preview the day you find out: it is free, and nothing is printed until you order.

Telling him on Christmas morning

A Christmas pregnancy announcement to your husband starts with an advantage: he is already expecting to unwrap something. The trick is to make the news the present, not one more box in the pile.

• The last present under the tree. Hold one small box back until everything else is open: the test sealed in a little bag, newborn socks, or a card with only the due month on it. Coming last tells him it matters.
• The toe of his stocking. Under the candy, an envelope addressed to Dad. Stockings get emptied slowly, so he finds it once the room has gone quiet.
• An ornament dated next year. A plain one that says Baby's First Christmas, with next year on it, handed to him to hang. He reads it, hangs it, then reads the year again.
• A gift tag from someone he has not met. Wrap a bib or a rattle and sign the tag from the baby. Some men get it at once; others need you to point at the tag.
• A book with the news on the cover. The one idea here we make, from our shelf of pregnancy announcement gifts, and the one he keeps after the morning.

Whichever you choose, do it before the house fills up: first thing on Christmas morning, or on Christmas Eve once everyone else is in bed.

And if you cannot wait until the twenty-fifth, do not: tell him tonight, and let Christmas be the morning you give him something to keep. For his actual present, our guide to Christmas gifts for couples covers the rest of the tree.

A book whose title is the news

Here is the idea we make, with its limits. And Then There Were Three is a hardcover storybook of the two of you, from her to him. The title is the news, so he reads it as the paper comes off, and inside you are both drawn as characters in the look of a modern 3D animated film, on all thirteen spreads.

First comes your life together so far, in moments most couples have a version of: the bench you still walk past on purpose, the first apartment painted the wrong yellow, mostly onto him, the Sunday pancake on the ceiling. Then the clues he missed: asleep at nine, pickles eaten out of the ice cream at midnight, a shop window full of very small things. At the end, a box, two very small shoes, and a page where he says nothing at all, for the first time in the whole book.

What it is not: your own story. The scenes are ours, the same for every couple who chooses this title. What is yours is your two faces on every page, your names in the words, and the last page, which you write and we print word for word; leave it empty and we print ours, which tells him, by name, that he is going to be the best dad in the world. Nobody in it is drawn with a bump, because it is made to be given early.

It needs a photo of each of you, and one picture of the two of you together works for both, so nobody has to ask him to pose. The preview takes about half a minute for each face, with no card and no account, and a real artist checks every book before it is printed in the United States. For Christmas, order by December 1: our pregnancy announcement book shows the delivery dates before you pay, and you can see the two of you drawn first, free. One limit: the title counts to three, so it is written for a first baby.

If you find out after December 1

December 1 is the last day we can promise the book under the tree, and plenty of people find out later than that. Do not let a delivery date decide how he hears the news.

• Tell him with something you can do tonight. The envelope in the stocking, the gift tag, an ornament from the drugstore.
• Let the cover say it, and the book follow. The free preview puts the two of you on the finished cover, title included. A screenshot of it, printed and folded into a card, is the announcement on Christmas morning, and the book follows when it arrives.
• Save the book for the second announcement. If the family hears in January, the book can be how the grandparents-to-be find out, with a copy of their own.

None of these needs the book to arrive in time. You can put the two of you on the cover tonight and decide the rest in the morning.

Telling the family at the Christmas table

Once he knows, the second announcement is a project for two. A Christmas pregnancy announcement to family works best when it takes a few seconds to work out, so the news travels around the room one face at a time.

• A very small stocking on the mantel. Hang it in the middle of the row and wait. Sooner or later somebody counts the stockings.
• A place card for a guest who is not here yet. One extra card, with the due month where the name should be. Sit where you can see who reads it first.
• The toast. Raise a glass of sparkling cider to this Christmas and to next year's, which will have one more at the table. If wine with Christmas dinner is your habit, plan this early: an untouched glass tends to announce it before you do.
• The second family photo. Take the yearly picture as usual, then hold up the ultrasound print for the second one, and keep filming. The faces are the photograph.
• One last present. A small box for your parents once the paper is cleared away, with a card inside signed by three.

Decide beforehand who says the words, and what you will answer when somebody asks how far along you are: at Christmas the honest answer is often early, and that is fine. If the family Christmas is at the parks this year, our Disney pregnancy announcement ideas cover the photo spots and the rules.

Telling the grandparents-to-be

Grandparents-to-be tend to remember two things: how they heard, and whether they heard first. Two habits take care of both.

Both sets, the same day. If his parents and yours spend Christmas in different houses, tell both on the same day, ideally within the same hour: one in person, one on a call. The version to avoid is his mother hearing it from yours.

Something for them to open. Grandparents keep things. A frame with the ultrasound print and the due month, a card asking what they would like the baby to call them, Grandma or Nana, Grandpa or Pop, or a short letter from the two of you that they will read twice.

If you are giving him the book, there is a simple version: the grandparents find out the way he did. In the cart, the book offers one more copy, marked for the grandparents-to-be, and because the drawing is already done, a copy only costs the printing. Start the book with a photo of each of you and add their copy before you pay. Remember it carries the same last page you wrote for him, so write it knowing his mother will read it too.

With an older brother or sister at the table

If this is not your first, the older child can be the best part of a Christmas announcement, and the least reliable secret-keeper in the house.

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that with children between two and four you look for natural chances to talk about the baby, such as when you start buying baby clothes or furniture, or when they ask about Mom's growing belly. In December, a few weeks in, there is usually neither, and a three year old told at Christmas has more than half a year to wait with nothing to see.

• Give them a job, not the secret. A child too young to read can carry the card to Grandma, or open a box with a big brother or big sister shirt in it, without keeping anything quiet for a week.
• Tell them first, by a few minutes. A child of five or more can hear it just before the table does and help tell everyone. The AAP notes that children over five are usually less threatened by a new baby than younger ones, though they may resent the attention it gets.
• Or wait. Telling the grown-ups at Christmas and a very small child later, when there is something to see, is entirely reasonable.

Our book's title counts to three, so with a second baby on the way the book that does more good is one for the older child: our guide to books for a new big brother or sister covers what to read and when, there are big sister and big brother gifts for the day the baby comes home, and our guide to custom children's books explains how a book with their own face in it works.

When the family is far away

Not every family fits around one table. If the grandparents-to-be are three states away, the news has to travel, and how it travels decides who gets to see their faces.

• A box that waits for the call. Mail a small box well ahead, marked do not open until we call, and open it together on Christmas Day. Ask them to prop the phone up so you can see both of them.
• An hour that works at both ends. Nine in the morning in New York is six in California, and still dark. Pick a time that suits both houses, and tell them to expect a call without saying why.
• The card is not how they find out. A Christmas card arrives when the mail decides and gets opened at the kitchen counter, maybe alone. Call close family first, and let the card carry the news to everyone else.
• Their copy of the book, sent on. Extra copies travel in the same package as yours, so wrap theirs and mail it on, or keep it for the first visit of the new year.

What to write on the card, the tag and the caption

Most Christmas baby announcement wording online is a rhyme somebody else wrote, and it shows. A short line of your own works better on a card, a gift tag or under a photo. A few to start from, or to rewrite until they sound like you:

• Merry Christmas from the two of us, and from the one arriving in [month].
• This year's card is signed by two. Next year's will need room for a third name.
• Two stockings on the mantel this year. Three next year.
• Our favorite present this year is still on its way. Due in [month].
• Home for the holidays, and growing by one in [month].
• Next Christmas, somebody very small gets the first present.

For a gift tag to him: to Dad, from someone you have not met yet. For the grandparents: see you in [month]. For a post, once everyone you meant to tell has heard: shorter than the card, the month rather than the date, and read by him first.

Or let the cover do the writing: put the news on a cover with the two of you on it, free to preview.

Who to tell, when, and how

The whole plan in one table. Each row assumes the ones above it have already happened.

If you follow only one row, follow the first.

Now, or after the holidays: deciding about the family

If the family hears at Christmas, they often hear in the first trimester, and there is no rule for that, only a choice the two of you make.

Main Line Health's guide says plainly that there is no one-size-fits-all answer, and one of its OB/GYNs offers a simple test: tell the people you would also tell if something went wrong. At a Christmas table that sorts itself out fast. Your parents, probably yes. The cousin who posts everything, probably not yet.

• Everyone, at Christmas. For close families who would be your support either way, and for anyone who could not keep a secret through a week of shared meals.
• The inner circle only. Parents and a sibling or two, privately, and the rest of the family in the new year.
• January, as a second Christmas. Keep it between you until the first ultrasounds, which Main Line Health says are done around six to eight weeks, or until the end of the first trimester, then tell everyone on a New Year's call or at a January dinner.

If you have lost a pregnancy before and found it hard to explain afterward, the same guide suggests waiting a little longer before telling some people. None of this is medical advice: your doctor or midwife is the person to ask about your own pregnancy.

Telling him first works with all three. If the family announcement moves to January, the book can wait for that day too: try it with a photo of each of you whenever you are ready.

What not to do at Christmas

• His parents before him. Or yours, or your sister. With everyone under one roof, whoever helped you plan is one slip away from telling him.
• A reveal he has to perform. A box opened in front of the whole family, with a phone pointed at him, asks for a big reaction on cue. He may want to cry, go quiet or swear: let him do that with you first.
• Stepping on someone else's news. If your sister just got engaged or your brother is announcing a move, talk to them before dinner. Two big announcements at one table shrink each other.
• Surprising someone who is struggling. If anyone at the table has been trying for a baby, or has lost one, tell them quietly beforehand, so they can choose how to be in the room.
• Posting before the people you love have heard. A cousin's comment is a hard way for an aunt to find out.

And if the morning does not go to plan, he finds the envelope early or guesses from the sparkling cider, let it go: he heard it from you, at Christmas. Afterward, for what to give a man who has just found out, we wrote gifts for a dad to be.