Christmas 2026
The stars over the place they were married, or born, or first kissed, computed to the minute and printed with the date underneath. For the person who has everything, because nobody else can give them this one.
US prints: order by Fri, Dec 11 for delivery by December 24. Free Worldwide Shipping on every print. Digital from $19.99, in minutes.
The idea
Most Christmas presents are bought for a category of person: a reader, a cook, someone who likes candles. A star map is bought for one person and one night. You give the date, the time and the town; the chart works out where every star bright enough to see with the naked eye stood above that spot at that moment, draws in the constellation lines, marks the planets that were up, and prints the whole sky in a circle with the place, date and coordinates beneath it.
The result reads as art from across the room and as a document up close. That is why it works as a Christmas gift across the whole list: the same idea suits a grandmother, a new father and a friend who just moved abroad, and each of them gets something that is only theirs. You choose the paper colour, the frame, and a line of your own words, and you see the finished chart in the customizer before paying — the full sky, not a sample with the date typed on.
The list
Partner
The obvious date is the wedding, and it is obvious because it works. But the charts people write to us about are the quieter ones: the night of the first date, the night in the hospital waiting room, the evening of the proposal in a city neither of you lives in any more. Pick the night they would pick. The framed 11×14 ($79.99) is the format most couples choose; it goes on the bedroom wall and stays there.
Parents & grandparents
Their wedding night is the classic, and for grandparents it can be forty or fifty years ago, which is exactly the point: the sky has not changed, and neither has the date. A second, well-liked choice is the birth of their first child, or of the grandchild who is giving the present. Ask a sibling for the hour if you can; the chart is computed to the minute, and getting it right is part of the gift.
New parents
The sky at the minute a child was born, over the hospital, with the parents' words underneath. It is the one gift at a first Christmas that is about the baby rather than for the baby, and it is the one that ends up on the nursery wall. If the baby is due after Christmas, the digital chart can be gifted as a promise and generated once the date is known.
Friends
A friend's chart is usually about a shared night rather than a milestone: the concert, the road trip, the evening the plan was made. The unframed print ($39.99) is the sensible format here; it ships rolled, it is easy to post on, and they choose the frame. For a group gift, one framed 18×24 ($139.99) split four ways is a serious present for very little each.
Children
Their own birth sky, with the constellations labelled, is a Christmas present that turns into a bedtime conversation. Pair the chart with a walk outside on a clear night and our guide to reading it; children who find "their" constellation tend to keep finding it. The wall clock version, with the birth sky as the face, is the format that survives a teenage bedroom.
Dates that matter
Prints are made to order and leave the print shop within 2-5 business days. Add the transit time for your country and a couple of days of margin, count back from December 24, and you get the last day to order a print. Digital charts are not on this table: they arrive by email in minutes.
| Ship to | Order prints by | Transit (business days) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Fri, Dec 11 | up to 5 | Published by our print partner |
| Canada | Tue, Dec 8 | up to 5 | Our estimate |
| United Kingdom | Thu, Dec 10 | up to 3 | Our estimate |
| Rest of Europe | Tue, Dec 8 | up to 5 | Our estimate |
| Germany | Tue, Dec 8 | up to 5 | Our estimate |
| Spain | Thu, Dec 10 | up to 3 | Our estimate |
| Nordics & Switzerland | Tue, Dec 1 | up to 10 | Our estimate |
| Australia | Mon, Dec 7 | up to 6 | Our estimate |
Estimate = 5 production days + regional transit + 2 buffer days, weekends excluded. free worldwide shipping on every print. After your date, a digital chart still lands in minutes.
Where our print partner has published its own Christmas date for a lane we show theirs; elsewhere the date is our estimate and errs early. Carriers get slower in the last fortnight of December, so a day in hand is worth more than a day saved.
Running late?
The digital chart ($19.99) is the same sky at print resolution, delivered by email within minutes of ordering. Print it at home on photo paper, at a pharmacy kiosk the same afternoon, or give it on a tablet and order the frame in January. Two people on the list? Two charts are $30.00 together. Last year our busiest single day was Christmas Day itself.
The hard case
The person who has everything is not hard to buy for because they own a lot; they are hard to buy for because anything you can buy, they could have bought. A star map fails that test in the right direction. They could not have bought the sky over the church on their wedding evening with their own words under it, because nobody sells that except to the person who knows the date.
It also ages well. The chart is not a gadget that will be superseded or a bottle that will be drunk; the sky it shows is fixed, and the older the date, the more the print says. A fortieth anniversary chart for parents, a chart of the night a grandfather arrived in the country, the sky over the hospital on the night of a first grandchild: these are the ones that get moved from house to house. If you want a guide to which one to give, the gift hub sorts by recipient and budget, and the astronomy lovers list covers the friend who actually owns a telescope.
What it costs
Shipping is included on every print to 35 countries. Two prints in one order save 10% automatically; two digital charts are $30.00 together.
PLATE 01·PNG + PDF · 300 DPI · MINUTES
In your inbox the moment you order. Print it, frame it, or gift the file.
PLATE 02·ARCHIVAL MATTE · 11×14 TO 24×36 IN
Museum-grade paper, shipped rolled in a rigid tube. Free shipping.
PLATE 03·BLACK · WHITE · OAK FRAME · READY TO HANG
Solid frame, glazed, hanging hardware fitted. Free shipping.
PLATE 04·8 IN ROUND · SILENT SWEEP MOVEMENT
Their sky, keeping time on the wall. Free shipping.
Questions
Their night, on the wall by Christmas
Framed from $79.99, unframed from $39.99, digital $19.99 in minutes. Free Worldwide Shipping on every print.
