Christmas Card Address Labels from a Google Sheet

Writing out 80 envelopes by hand every December gets old fast. Keep your holiday card list in a Google Sheet once, and each year the labels take a few minutes: update a few addresses, print, peel and stick.

This guide shows how to set up the list, print one label per household, make a sheet of return address labels and plan the timing. The steps use Peelstack Label Maker, our add-on for Google Sheets.

Set up your family list once

Start a sheet with these columns in row 1:

Household: the name as it should appear on the envelope, such as "The Nguyen Family" or "Grandma and Grandpa Ross".
Address, Address 2, City, State, ZIP (or Town and Postcode outside the US).
Country: only for cards going abroad. Leave it empty for domestic addresses.
Send card: Yes or No, so you can decide each year who gets a card without deleting anyone.

Format the ZIP column as plain text (Format, Number, Plain text) so codes like 02134 keep their leading zero. If US ZIP codes in your list show only 4 digits, the preview warns you that a zero may be missing.

Is your list still in Excel or an old CSV file? You do not have to rebuild it. In the add-on, open "Or paste a list", copy the rows including the header row, and paste. Relatives abroad are fine too: names and addresses in Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi or Thai print correctly.

One label per household

Family lists tend to grow one person at a time, so the Smiths end up on three rows and would get three cards. Here is how to get one label per household:

Sort by address. Select your data and use Data, Sort range, sorting by the Address column. Rows that share an address now sit together, which makes them easy to spot.
Use the household name on the first line. Make line 1 {Household} instead of {First} {Last}. Rows for the same home now produce the same label text.
Turn on skipping. Open "Text style and copies" and tick Skip labels that are exact duplicates. Any label whose text matches an earlier label exactly is left out, and the add-on tells you how many it skipped.

No household column? Keep line 1 as {First} {Last} and tick One label per household instead. Rows with the same address lines share one label and their names are joined, for example "Ada Lovelace & Bo Lovelace". The add-on tells you how many rows it combined.

"Exact" means exact. "12 Oak St" and "12 Oak Street" make two different labels, so sorting first helps you catch near matches and tidy them up.

Print the address labels

Go to Extensions, Peelstack Label Maker, Create labels.
Type the number on your label box. Avery® 5160 is the classic 30 per sheet address label on US Letter (5160 details); 5163 gives bigger 4 x 2 in labels (5163 details). On A4, L7160 (21 per sheet) and L7163 (14 per sheet) are the usual choices (L7160, L7163).
Set the lines:
```
{Household}
{Address}
{Address 2}
{City}, {State} {ZIP}
{Country}
```
Empty lines are left out, so domestic labels simply end with the city line.
To print only this year's cards, add a filter (Data, Create a filter), show only rows where Send card is Yes, and choose Rows shown by the filter.
Check the preview. Rows that had to be printed smaller to fit are listed by row number.
Got a half used sheet left over from last year? Click the first empty label in the preview and printing starts there.
Click Download PDF and print on the right paper size (Letter or A4), at Actual size or 100%, with "Fit to page" turned off.

Print one page on plain paper first and hold it against a label sheet. If it is slightly off, see how to fix misaligned labels. For more on lines and rows, read how to print labels from Google Sheets.

Return address labels

You do not need a sheet for these.

Pick a small label, such as 5167 (80 per sheet, 1 3/4 x 1/2 in, 5167 details) or L7651 on A4 (65 per sheet, L7651 details).
Tick Same text on every label.
Type your address, one line per row, for example "The Garcia Family", "48 Maple Avenue", "Springfield, IL 62704".
Under "How many labels", enter a full sheet (80 for 5167) or more.
Under "Text style and copies", choose Left or Centre alignment. Small labels have little room, so three lines is a good limit; the preview tells you if the text had to shrink.

Want a festive touch? Under "Picture, QR code or barcode", choose "The same picture on every label" and pick a small PNG or JPG, such as a holly sprig or a family monogram. Pictures appear in the PDF.

When to print

Early November: update addresses while you still have time to ask people who moved. Buy labels before the rush.
Mid November: print one test page on plain paper, so any alignment fix is done before label day.
Late November to early December: print and send. In the US, searches for address labels peak in the first two weeks of December, so earlier is calmer. In the UK, searches for Christmas labels start climbing in October.
Cards abroad: check your postal service's recommended last posting dates; international dates come earlier than domestic ones.

Next year, open the same sheet, update the Send card column and print again.

What it costs

Peelstack Label Maker is free with every feature for up to 30 labels per run, one full sheet of Avery 5160 address labels, and you can run it as often as you like. A longer list prints its first 30 labels on the free plan, and the preview shows exactly those. Test pages are always free. Every plan reads up to 10,000 rows of a sheet at a time and makes up to 50,000 labels per run. A paid plan removes the 30 label limit: $29 for one year or $59 once. No subscription, nothing renews. A once a year user never gets a surprise charge.

Avery® is a trademark of Avery Products Corporation. Taskivator is not affiliated with Avery.