The best Minecraft Christmas builds, seeds, skins, and more

Minecraft Christmas seeds, skins and builds can transform your world, realm, or server into a holidays paradise, here are some of the best ideas to inspire you.

What are the best Minecraft Christmas ideas? Minecraft Christmas seeds, builds, and other ideas can turn your world into a winter wonderland, especially if you can find a nice snowy taiga biome with a cozy village all ready to go. From Minecraft skins, mods, build ideas, and more, there’s plenty of resources at your fingertips to turn your seed festive.

We’ve got Minecraft mods that inexplicably cover the lava-filled Nether with snow, vanilla (in more ways than one) Minecraft builds that you can live in for the holiday season, and even some Minecraft skins so you look the part. However you celebrate the holidays, whatever the weather where you are, whether you’re building a new or existing world, we’ve got skiing villagers, peppermint sugar cane, and glittering Christmas trees – so here’s everything you need to have yourself a merry Minecraft Christmas in arguably the king of all building games – not just of the holidays, but of a generation.

If you want to jump ahead to anything in particular, here’s our top picks for a Merry Minecraft Christmas:

Christmas Builds

Christmas seeds

Christmas skins

Christmas mods

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Minecraft Christmas builds

Gingerbread house

Minecraft is one of the best survival games out there, but if building is more your style, what’s more festive than living in your very own gingerbread house? There are a few different gingerbread house build tutorials online, but you’ll find most will require Minecraft shaders or mods. If you want to stick with classic Minecraft, you can still make something beautiful using just vanilla resources, as Youtuber I’m a Wild One demonstrates in the tutorial above. Home sweet home!

Minecraft Christmas builds - a festive red and green carousel in the snow

Christmas carousel

There may not be a tutorial to follow for this one, but we can’t not post this adorable Christmas carousel from Redditor and Youtube Minecrafter Inventor PWB. In fact, each of the original post’s holiday-themed builds would make perfect additions to your festive world, particularly the Christmas-colored steam train. That one’s a little more tricky to build from the image though, so we recommend starting with the slightly easier carousel, and working your way up – wouldn’t it make a gorgeous centerpiece in a little holiday village?

Minecraft Christmas builds: a cute vanilla Minecraft Christmas tree sits on the snow, topped with Amethyst

Christmas tree

While you can get more detail into custom tree builds the bigger they are, BlenDigi shows bigger isn’t always better with this simple-yet-detailed vanilla Minecraft Christmas tree build. Perfectly capped off using amethyst blocks, the real star of this tree is the clever use of item frames and stained glass panes, to give a star-shaped bauble effect.

Minecraft Christmas builds - a small igloo with a chimney built in Minecraft

Cozy igloo

If you can’t find an igloo in your Minecraft world (though we found some in the seed below), then why not just build your own? This also means you can put your cute and cozy new home anywhere you like – perhaps in the middle of an ice spikes biome or out on a desolate frozen ocean. Or maybe even the middle of a jungle, it’s your world! Wherever you put this simple house, built by Youtuber BBlocks, make sure you only light it with redstone torches, as any other light source will melt your precious abode.

Minecraft Christmas builds - a cosy brick fireplace with stockings hanging on it

Cozy fireplace

If there’s one thing you need during the holidays, it is a cozy fire to warm your chilly toes. This is another one from BBlocks, but – like the igloo – it’s also one you can easily adjust and make your own. This toasty fire is completely achievable in vanilla survival Minecraft, but you’ll need to use a Java edition cheat to place those stockings. To obtain invisible item frames to hang boots from, type in “/give @p item_frame{EntityTag:{Invisible:1b}}”.

Minecraft Christmas builds - a festive village, with cosy wooden houses surrounding a central Christmas tree feature

An entire holiday village

Finally, why not put everything above into one gigantic holiday village? Or simply incorporate some of those ideas into this stunning build by Makko on PlanetMinecraft. Despite Makko commenting since the original upload that they plan to make this a downloadable map, that is not yet the case, so you’ll just have to build your own inspired by them.  Again, you’ll need to try and work from the images as this one has no tutorial.

Minecraft Christmas seeds

With mods, there is a way to turn all Minecraft biomes into icy landscapes for a white Christmas, but there are still some stunning Minecraft seeds out there naturally covered in the white stuff. We’ve checked the gorgeous Minecraft seeds below for version parity, so while they vary slightly, you can pop these codes into either the Java or Bedrock edition for almost the same results.

An igloo in one of the best Minecraft Christmas seeds in 1.20.

Festive Speedrun seed

Seed: -4496590507308278848
Latest version: 1.20
Features: Igloo above an Ancient City and Stronghold, and near a Nether Fortress.

This festive Minecraft seed is one of our favorites, thanks to a lot of rare structures spawning close together, including a wintry igloo. If you’re looking for a Minecraft seed you can ‘complete’ quickly over the holiday period, which also has that chilly, snowy feel, then this one is perfect.

You do spawn in a warm bamboo forest and must walk to coords x = 648, y = , z = 1,544, but it’s worth it. There are a few villages to gather some essential loot on the way, and your destination features the igloo above. This ice-olated home features a basement with a zombie villager, and below that, you’ll find an Ancient city and a stronghold. Make a Nether Portal somewhere nearby, and you’ll find yourself just a few blocks away from a Nether Fortress, at x = 126, z = 274.

Minecraft Christmas seeds - 5488656216511509290: sun rays pour over snow-topped mountains and a frozen lake

Snowy structures at spawn

Seed: 5488656216511509290
Latest version: 1.20
Features: Snowy biomes, Pillager Outpost, villages, and igloos near spawn

This stunning snowy seed spawns you right above a ravine in a snowy taiga biome, with fluffy shite snow stretching out to the south west as far as the eye can see. To the north east though, it’s all lush, green forest and taiga biomes, perfect for continuing on in your new world past the chilly holiday season.

That’s not why you’re here though, so let’s stick to the south west. Firstly, you don’t need to travel far in this seed to experience some real sights. You spawn right next to a small mountain, but don’t let it pass you by – scale to the top and you can see it opens up into a large, gloomy dripstone cave. With this and the ravine right at spawn, you’ve got resources aplenty at your fingertips. The dripstone cave opens up at the back onto an idyllic frozen lake, and while this is perfect for bringing some festive Minecraft house ideas to life, you might want to adventure a little further than spawn for the true survival experience.

Just as well, then, that there is a Pillager Outpost close to spawn at x:-200, z:125 – just make sure you’ve got some weapons and armor before you go rescuing their adorable prisoners. Victory sealed (if you can call pillaging the pillagers a victory…), keep heading southwest and you’ll come across a snowy abandoned (read: zombie) village – great for a horror x Christmas build, perhaps? Adding to these rare structures all coming together, this seed is littered with igloos close to spawn, but if you’re looking for one with a basement, then head to x:-710, z:535 – and if you don’t know what’s down there, we won’t spoil it, but go take a look (and a golden apple).

Minecraft Christmas seeds: A snowy taiga village sits in front of an ice spikes biome, with large, blue ice pillars rising from the ground

Ice Spikes village

Seed: -2523273666654378975
Latest version: 1.20
Features: Icy spikes village and chunks upon chunks of snowy space to build upon

While the above seed is perfect for building in, it leans a little more towards survival experience. This one’s the opposite; while it has all you need for an enjoyable play-through of the game, it’s also the ideal canvas for all of your festive build ideas to come to life.

If you’re planning to build in survival mode, you still need resources and a good head start, and this seed kicks you off with a cozy snowy taiga village right across from you at spawn. Kit up from there, get your walking (leather) boots on and get trekking in the opposite direction because we’re taking you to x: 1350, z: -1970. Along the way, you’ll see why this seed is just perfect for building with long stretches of snowy plains and frozen oceans. In fact, you might not even make it to where we’re headed if you stumble upon your perfect beauty spot along the way.

If you do make it to 1350, -1970, waiting for you will be another village, this time on a backdrop of an Ice Spikes biome. This rare biome just looks incredible and is a great spot for some really cool fantasy builds, like a winter castle or a blue dragon. Alternatively, you could just spruce (geddit) up the taiga village, rebuilding and adding to the houses already there, and turn it into your own North Pole.

A plains village overlooking an ice spikes biomes in one of the best Minecraft Christmas seeds.

Ice spikes village at spawn

Seed: 5331737132297608839
Latest version: 1.20
Features: Two villages in view of spawn, backing onto ice spikes and snowy biomes.

The reason we’ve featured both this seed and the one above is that this one is easier, while the one above is more aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately, the two villages in this seed are both in a plains biome, so while they do back onto wintry biomes, they might not be best placed for your most festive builds. That said, they are immediately visible as soon as your spawn into the world, making survival easy.

Minecraft Christmas skins - a pixelated rudolph hovers over a snowy landscape filled with glittering Christmas trees

Minecraft Christmas skins

Just like you might want to wrap up warm in the real world, don’t forget to dress your Minecraft skin with the same care and attention over Christmas. Be it a snuggly scarf and hat, a Santa costume, or something a bit more out there, there are plenty of skins to choose from for the holidays – and if you’re particularly creative, you can even make your own. If you’re not up to the challenge, there are plenty of ready-made skins for Java Edition on NameMC, or the official Marketplace if you’re playing on Bedrock. Here are just a couple of our favorites.

Rudolph skin

This Rudolph skin on NameMC is incredibly cute, and while there are a multitude of Rudolph skins across the aforementioned sites, this one takes the Christmas cookie. If you didn’t think it could get any better, there are even variants, such as a cool blue-toned style and one wearing a Santa hat.

Minecraft Christmas skins - a cute penguin in a wool hat and scarf flies over a snow Minecraft biome

Penguin skin

If Rudolph isn’t cool enough, then what about everybody’s favorite flightless bird, the penguin? Don this adorably chilly penguin skin and head to the nearest icy biome to hang out with polar bears. We still don’t recommend trying to take the furry beasts on, though, they can’t be fooled by a simple avatar skin.

The Grinch Minecraft skin form, a bright green avatar with the Grinch's large eyebrows and red and white striped scarf.

Grinch skin

The indisputable face of Christmas (well, perhaps apart from Santa himself), the Grinch has of course been recreated in a Minecraft skin. If you feel a little more bah humbug around the festive season, then this is the perfect skin to wear as you build on a Minecraft beach or forest or anywhere snow doesn’t fall.

Minecraft Christmas mods: The Nether at Christmas, lava is replaced with snow, and crimson and warped trees are replaced with sweet, candy-cane themed foliage

Minecraft Christmas mods

Craftmas remastered

This holiday resource pack is a true gift. While we’ve mentioned snowy biomes above, you don’t need to worry with the Craftmas Remastered resource pack installed, as your entire Minecraft world – Nether included – is coated in snow. Turn leaves white, transform sugarcane into candy canes, and place Christmas presents wherever possible. Villagers won’t walk anymore – they ski, of course. And yes, that’s right, I mentioned The Nether. The deadly wasteland becomes a winter wonderland as Netherrack is replaced with ice, and even Crimson and Warped Forest biomes are given a delectable overhaul.

Minecraft Christmas mods: The Christmas Tree mod turns oak trees into glowing, fairy-tree covered Christmas trees

Christmas Tree mod

The Christmas Tree resource pack transforms oak trees into glittering Christmas trees, and their fairy lights even glow if you have Optifine equipped. You can adorn your existing survival world with these gorgeous pines, but the resource pack also adds 22 colorful baubles that do require cheats to hang from branches using item frames. As these can only be used with Minecraft console commands, you may only want to use these in a creative world. Once you’ve finished adorning your tree, top it off with a star by placing a redstone torch and placing colorful gifts beneath its branches.

If you play on Java Edition, there’s even an annual bonus treat to put you in the giving mood – log in on December 24 or 25, and you’ll notice your world is full of gifts as every chest is turned into a wrapped present. Sort your inventory into gifts under a Christmas tree build, light a campfire to warm your toes, and settle into a Minecraft Christmas.

If you’re feeling a little too chilly, you might prefer to spend your Christmas in the desert with Minecraft camels, but you can still bring a little snow with you by using a Minecraft pumpkin to build a snow golem. Alternatively, if this all seems like a little too much work for the holiday season, try some of our favorite relaxing games, or some of the other best PC games this holiday season.