Since the crazy Christmas season is upon us, and with the 12 days of Christmas giveaways contest. I am in the whirlwind of Christmas, it’s fairly early for me… but I love it.

This post isn’t just a showcase of Christmas Websites, but I guess just the idea of Christmas on the web. A simple search for Christmas websites in google will give you the likes of these examples.

As well as a post of the Top 50 Christmas websites from Tech Digest TV dated Dec. 2006

And yes these sites suck more then Clark Griswalds 1 year membership for the Jelly of the month club.

These days around the holiday season you can bet your money that you will come across a well branded holiday website. Whether it’s a retail store throwing in some holiday spirit or a full fledged Christmas makeover.

Retail Holiday Branding

This is the most obvious set of websites that take part in the annual event. With Black Friday and Boxing Day hype retail stores thrive on holiday business. So for the big guys, it’s expected to see their websites decked with holiday cheer.

Email Marketing

Also another strong tool for big retailers to let their customers know about their products. These usually come in the form of big typography of 50% OFF, or BUY 1 GET 1 FREE! very simple organized and powerful message.

Christmas Websites

These websites are specifically about Christmas, the content, the design, the target is Christmas. These sites tend to be fun, and target the younger generation, as they should. I don’t think many adults will spend a lot of time on these sites, unless you are a huge fan of Christmas and have no time on your hands. I will confess that I have took part in the Elf Yourself fun… but who hasn’t! I wonder how much traffic these sites get yearly and how much of a traffic boost they get in the holiday season?

Holiday Movies

Yes, we don’t like them all but they make us feel are warm and fuzzy inside. It’s been a long time since a classic good Christmas movie has come out, but there has been some good efforts, but this section is just a quick glance at holiday movies, and their respected websites. Of course the movie is about Christmas so, yes of course the website will be as well. This is an easy connection, but here is a showcase of these sites and how they have branded their websites and made the connections to the films.

The Small Details

These sites are just your regular day to day websites, that have added small details or elements to show their love for the holidays. Whether it’s a Christmas greeting, small ribbon in the top corner, or just a Christmas holiday pattern.

When thinking about all these holiday branding ideas… should designers be more involved with adding holiday brands. Should we spice up our portfolios, what about web studios, or even blogs… Bloggers go through themes like Eggnog, so should we be thinking about adding holiday branding to our blogs or portfolios. We spend time thinking about Holiday Greeting cards, and self promotion over the holidays, why not offer your audience a little holiday spirit, What do you think?

Bonus Christmas Ads

Abduzeedo has a great post about Christmas ads, here are some of my favorites.