Ask ten families why they all put on the same christmas jammies every December and you will get ten versions of "we always have." Ask when it started, and the answers get vague fast. We went looking for the documented history behind the tradition, kept what we could verify with a source we actually opened, and flagged what we could not. The result is shorter on dates than most versions you will find online, and more useful if you are starting the tradition yourself.
The short answer
Families wear matching Christmas pajamas because two older habits merged. The first is the Christmas Eve pajama gift, a household custom that university folklore archives have recorded from students describing their own families. The second is the family holiday card, which went from a posed photo to a shareable video when the Holderness family of Raleigh, North Carolina, posted "Xmas Jammies" in 2013 as their digital Christmas card. Why it sticks is better explained by research on family rituals than by any single origin story: rituals carry a sense of "this is who we are," and they feel richer when everyone takes part. Claims that the tradition began in a particular 1950s department-store catalog are widely repeated, but we could not find a primary source for any of them, so we do not repeat them as fact. This is our editorial reading, and PatPat sells matching pajamas.
Red Fair Isle print family set, baby 0-3M to adultShop now
Red and white Fair Isle reindeer print family setShop now
Red striped Christmas tree print family setShop now
Where Did Matching Christmas Pajamas Come From? What the Record Shows
There is no founding date, no inventor and no first family. What exists is a handful of documented pieces and a much larger cloud of repeated claims. Here is how we sorted them.
| Claim you will see online | What we found | How much weight to give it |
|---|---|---|
| Families give new pajamas on Christmas Eve | Recorded as a living family custom in the Utah State University folklore collection, in entries collected in 2017 and 2018 | Documented as a practice. No starting date |
| A viral 2013 video made matching family pajamas a holiday look | The Holderness family's "Xmas Jammies," released in 2013, with more than 8 million YouTube views reported by December 18 that year | Documented, with dates and view counts from several sources |
| Matching family sleepwear began in 1950s or early 1960s mail-order catalogs, sometimes naming one store and year | Repeated by lifestyle sites and retailer blogs, usually quoting a collector or another blog. We found no scanned catalog page or archive record | Unverified. Possible, but we would not cite it |
| The custom came from one specific country | Asserted on retailer blogs without sources | Unverified |
| Matching outfits make families closer | No study we could find tested matching pajamas. Research on family rituals in general is real and summarized below | Treat as a reasonable idea, not a finding |
Why be this strict? Because pajama history is a topic where one blog post gets copied into a hundred others, with the dates drifting a little each time. A claim that appears on many websites is not the same as a claim with a source. If you have seen a mid-century catalog page showing a whole family in matching Christmas sleepwear, the catalog itself is the source worth finding, and we would happily update this article if one turns up in a library or museum collection.
What the documented pieces do show is that the tradition has two roots with different jobs. The Christmas Eve gift is private and about anticipation. The matching photo is public and about the family presenting itself. Most households today do both at once, which is why the habit feels older and more fixed than any of its sources can prove.
The Christmas Eve Pajama Gift: A Family Custom Folklorists Have Recorded
The clearest evidence for the gift tradition comes from student folklore projects, where students interview people about customs they actually practice. Two entries in the Utah State University Fife Folklore Archives collection describe it in detail.
In a record collected in Logan, Utah, on November 11, 2017, a 21-year-old student who grew up in Lubbock, Texas, describes her family getting new pajamas "every year, like as a family" on Christmas Eve, and calls it her favorite part of Christmas. The gathering rotates among her mother's siblings' homes in Utah County and starts around 6 p.m. Everyone unwraps the pajamas at the same moment, changes into them right away, and wears them through Christmas Day. One detail stands out: the grandparents and the grown children do not receive pajamas. In that family, the gift marks the children's generation.
A second record, collected in Smithfield, Utah, in November 2018, describes a Christmas Eve dinner at the grandparents' house where the gifts are pajamas and books. The family opens them together in the living room, changes into the new pajamas, and then listens to a reading of The Night Before Christmas. The collector notes that the family kept the custom every year, wherever its members were living.
What these records tell you, and what they do not
Folklore entries describe how a custom is practiced, not where it started. Neither record dates the tradition's origin, and two families in one state are not a national survey. But they show the parts that make the custom work in real homes:
- Everyone opens at once. Both families make the unwrapping a group moment, not a pile of separate gifts.
- The pajamas go on immediately. The gift is used the same evening, which is part of its appeal to children.
- It is attached to another ritual. A family dinner, a reading of the same poem, a set house. The pajamas are the signal that the evening has started.
- The family sets its own rules. One family leaves out grandparents, another includes books. There is no correct version.
Matching is not mentioned as a requirement in either record. The gift came first, and for many families the shift to one shared print happened later, often because of the photo. If you want to build the gift into a full evening, our Christmas Eve box for kids covers what to put in the box by age, and the Waiting for Santa night covers cookies, candles and bedtime.
How the 2013 "Xmas Jammies" Video Turned Matching Pajamas Into a Holiday Card
If the gift is the private root, the public one has a date. In 2013, the Holderness family of Raleigh, North Carolina, released "Xmas Jammies," a parody of Will Smith's "Miami" made as the family's digital Christmas card. Penn Holderness, then a news anchor at WNCN, and his wife, Kim, appear with their two children, Lola and Penn Charles, in matching Christmas pajamas while Penn raps a recap of the family's year.
The numbers moved quickly. A local TV report dated December 18, 2013 put the video at more than 8 million YouTube views. Wikipedia's entry on the family says it reached 18 million views in its first ten years, and a 2023 Raleigh News & Observer story on the tenth anniversary reported more than 18.7 million. The video changed the family's own path, too. In that anniversary story, their daughter credits it with letting her father leave journalism to spend more time at home.
Why this one video matters to the tradition
Plenty of families wore matching pajamas before 2013. What "Xmas Jammies" did was attach the look to a specific job: the holiday card. It showed that a family in one shared print reads instantly as a family, even in a phone video, and that the effect works better when the people inside the pajamas are being a little ridiculous. That is the version of the tradition most families now practice: the matching set as the uniform for the year's group photo, then worn on Christmas morning.
It also left one piece of advice that still holds. Speaking to the News & Observer for the tenth anniversary, Kim Holderness said: "had I realized we were going to be wearing these in 10 years, I would have sized up a little bit." For adults, that is a fair point if you plan to keep one set for years. For children's sleepwear sold in the US, though, the CPSC rules mean a piece is either flame-resistant or snug-fitting, and a snug-fitting set should be bought in the child's true size, not one up. Read the label before you size up anyone under 14.
If the card is the part your family cares about, our guide to using National Family PJ Day to shoot your holiday card early turns that idea into a schedule.
Why Matching Pajamas Feel Meaningful: What Research on Family Rituals Says
We found no peer-reviewed study on matching Christmas pajamas. What does exist is solid research on family rituals in general, and it explains a lot about why this particular one has spread.
Rituals say "this is who we are"
In 2002, a team led by Barbara Fiese at Syracuse University published a review of 50 years of research on family routines and rituals in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Family Psychology, covering 32 studies. The authors draw a line between two things families do together. Routines carry practical information, "this is what needs to be done," like dinnertime and bedtime. Rituals carry symbolic meaning, "this is who we are" as a group, and holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving were among the most common examples. The review linked family routines and rituals with marital satisfaction, adolescents' sense of personal identity, and children's health and academic achievement.
Two cautions apply. These are associations, not proof that a ritual causes better outcomes, and none of the research looked at pajamas. But the "this is who we are" framing fits the matching tradition closely. A shared print is a visible way of saying the people wearing it belong to the same group, which is why a family photo in one print reads so clearly even to strangers.
Rituals work better when you take part, and when you wait
A second line of research looks at rituals in small, everyday moments. In a 2013 study in Psychological Science, Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota and colleagues found that performing a short ritual before eating changed how people experienced the food. Two details from that work map neatly onto Christmas pajamas. First, personal involvement mattered: watching someone else perform the ritual did not produce the same effect. Second, a longer delay between the ritual and the experience made the effect stronger.
Again, this was a study about food, not clothing, and we would not stretch it into a promise. Still, the practical lessons are reasonable ones for a family tradition:
- Let people take part in it, not just receive it. Children who help choose the print or wrap the boxes are participants, not an audience.
- Build in a wait. Opening on Christmas Eve and wearing the set on Christmas morning puts a night of anticipation between the two. So does an announced date, such as a set evening in early December.
- Keep the steps the same each year. The folklore families did not just hand over pajamas. They did it at the same time, in the same way, followed by the same reading.
How Families Keep the Matching Christmas Jammies Tradition Going Today
The tradition has changed shape in one important way: the whole household now fits into one print. Today, a single listing for matching family christmas jammies often covers every generation and the dog, with different cuts for different bodies.
Here is what that looks like on one of the listings we read, the red reindeer plaid set with glow-in-the-dark details. You choose each family member and size on the same product page, and each piece is added to the cart separately.
| Family member | What the listing offers | Sizes in stock when we read it |
|---|---|---|
| Women and men | Two-piece set: long-sleeve top and full-length pants | S to 3XL across the adult options |
| Kids | The same print in kids' sizes. The listing describes the kids' and baby pieces as flame-resistant | 2Y to 12-13Y |
| Baby | The listing says each size comes as a set or a romper, so check the baby photo | 3-6M to 12-18M |
| Pets | A bandana in the family print, without socks | S(Pets) and L(Pets) |
The listing also says each pajama set comes with a pair of buffalo plaid socks, apart from the pet size. Two practical notes follow from that table. The baby range starts at 3-6M on this print, so a newborn needs a different one; the red Fair Isle set above had 0-3M in stock when we read it. And the 4XL end of the adult range is limited to selected prints, so if anyone in your family wears it, choose the print by that person first.
Not every family's tradition is red
Red and white dominates the classic look, but plenty of families settle on a different signature color and keep it every year. If you'd rather start with green christmas pajamas, the two below are both deep green: one is a fleece with gingerbread figures, the other pairs a green top with pants in an all-over print of Christmas trees, snow globes, snowmen and polar bears. Both had kids' sizes from 2Y to 12-13Y in stock when we read them. For what each holiday motif traditionally stands for, our guide to what Christmas pajama prints mean goes print by print.
Dark green fleece gingerbread print family set with pocketsShop now
Green top with Christmas tree and snow globe print pants family setShop now
Shop the look
For a family that wants every member covered, from baby to the dog, the red reindeer plaid set fits the table above, and the Christmas tree and car print runs from XS to 4XL across its adult options. Each is one listing: choose each member and size.
Red reindeer plaid family set with glow-in-the-dark printShop now
Christmas tree and car print family set, adults XS to 4XLShop now
Starting Your Own Matching Pajama Tradition: Decisions for the First Year
Most traditions are not planned. They happen once, someone says "let's do that again," and by the third year it is fixed. If you would rather shape yours on purpose, these are the decisions worth making in the first year, because they are the hardest to change later.
1. When the pajamas appear
Pick one moment and keep it. The common choices each have a different payoff:
| Moment | What it gives you | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Christmas Eve, opened together | The classic version from the folklore records, with a built-in wait until morning | No time to fix a wrong size before Christmas |
| November 14, National Family PJ Day | Time to take the card photo and wear the set all season | Less surprise on Christmas Eve |
| Thanksgiving weekend | Relatives are often in the house for one group photo | Competes with travel and cooking |
| A set evening in early December | A night of its own, often paired with a movie or the tree | Needs a fixed date or it slips |
If you choose Christmas Eve, buy and check the sizes well ahead, then rewrap. Returns have to be unworn with tags and original packaging, and our refund policy offers no direct exchange, only a return and a new purchase.
2. Who is included
Decide now whether the tradition covers grandparents, partners and the dog, because adding people later is easy and dropping them is awkward. One folklore family gave pajamas only to the children's generation, and that is a legitimate choice. Teens and reluctant adults are a separate conversation; our guide to matching Christmas pajamas for teens and dads covers coordinating instead of matching.
3. The same print every year, or a new one
Some families keep one signature print for years so the photos line up. Others pick a new print each year, and the photos become a timeline. Keeping one print is harder than it sounds, since prints come and go from season to season. If you want continuity, keep a color instead of a print: always red, always green, always plaid.
4. The photo that repeats
Take one photo in the same spot every year, with the same pose: the stairs, the front door, the sofa. That single repeated frame becomes the record of the tradition far more than any one year's card. Keep the original files in one folder named by year.
5. What happens to outgrown sets
Children outgrow their pajamas every year or two. Decide whether you keep one piece per child as a memento, pass sets down to younger cousins, or donate them. Families who keep one small piece each year often end up with the most meaningful part of the tradition in a single box.
Frequently asked questions
When did matching Christmas pajamas start? No reliable source gives a starting date. The Christmas Eve pajama gift is documented as a family custom, and the matching look became a widespread holiday card after the Holderness family's 2013 "Xmas Jammies" video.
Did matching family pajamas start in 1950s catalogs? Many websites say so, sometimes naming a store and year, but we could not find a catalog page or archive record that confirms it. Treat those dates as unverified.
What was the "Xmas Jammies" video? It was the Holderness family's 2013 digital Christmas card, a parody of Will Smith's "Miami" filmed in matching pajamas. A local TV report put it above 8 million YouTube views by December 18, 2013, and it reached 18 million in its first ten years.
Why do families open new pajamas on Christmas Eve? Families describe it as a way to start the holiday together: everyone opens at once, changes right away and wears the set through Christmas Day. It also means everyone is dressed alike for Christmas morning photos.
Is there research showing matching pajamas bring families closer? Not on pajamas specifically. Research on family rituals links them with a shared sense of identity, and a 2013 study found rituals feel richer when people take part in them, but neither proves that matching clothing causes closeness.
Can the whole family, including the baby and the dog, wear the same print? On many PatPat family listings, yes: you choose each member and size on one page, and the pet piece is a bandana. Baby and 4XL sizes vary by print, so check them before choosing.
Should I size up so the pajamas last longer? For adults, that is a personal choice. For children's sleepwear labeled snug-fitting, buy the true size, because the close fit is part of how it meets US sleepwear rules.
A tradition is easier to start when every size is in stock on the same print, and sizes sell out one at a time. Check your family's list against the print before you settle on it.
About this article
Written and fact-checked by the PatPat Editorial Team. How we research, source and review what we publish is set out on our editorial standards page.
Method. Historical claims were checked against the sources listed below, each opened in November 2026. Claims we could not trace to a primary or reliable source, including specific mid-century catalog origins, are flagged as unverified rather than repeated. Product details and in-stock sizes were read from PatPat product pages in November 2026. PatPat is the seller of these pajamas, and we did not wear-test any garment. The suggestions for starting a tradition are editorial judgment.
Sources. Christmas Eve pajama customs: Utah State University Fife Folklore Archives, "Christmas Pajamas" (2017) and "Christmas Eve Books and Pajamas" (2018). "Xmas Jammies": Wikipedia, The Holderness Family; ClickOnDetroit, December 18, 2013; The News & Observer via Yahoo News, December 12, 2023. Family rituals review: American Psychological Association release on Fiese et al., Journal of Family Psychology (2002), via EurekAlert. Rituals and experience: Association for Psychological Science release on Vohs et al., Psychological Science (2013), via ScienceDaily. Children's sleepwear: CPSC, Children's Sleepwear. Returns: PatPat refund policy.
Last updated 7 November 2026 · Next review November 2027
