Turn your selfie into a holiday card: An AI photo guide from The Current

December 21, 2025

By Kim Komando

We all have that one photo. The headshot or selfie where the lighting worked, your hair behaved, and you said, Damn. You’ve probably reused it everywhere. Profile photos, bios, maybe even last year’s holiday card.

Good news. This year, you don’t need a photographer, a studio or a last-minute outfit change to get a festive image. AI can take that one good photo and drop you into a Christmas scene in under a minute.

ChatGPT

This is one of the easiest places to start. Upload your headshot using the attachment icon (+ sign), then describe the scene you want.

Try a prompt like: “Using this photo as a reference for the person, create a realistic image of her sitting by a glowing fireplace in a rustic log cabin. She’s wearing a chunky cream knit sweater and holding a mug of hot cocoa with marshmallows. Soft Christmas tree lights in the background. Warm, cinematic lighting. 8K quality.”

If ChatGPT keeps getting it wrong, close the tab or app completely and try again. It’s kinda like an AI reboot. Or add the essential prompt at the end of this article.

Nano Banana from Google

You might want to avoid this one. You see, to prevent deepfakes, Nano Banana creates a new face inspired by your photo instead of copying it exactly.

If you want to try it anyway, upload your photo and say, “Use the person in this image as a subject reference for facial structure, hair color and build. Place the person at a festive Christmas market with warm lighting.” I warned you.

Pro tip: Google Labs’ Whisk does a better job of keeping your face intact and blending it with a subject, scene and style.

Midjourney

This is the powerhouse, if you have the patience and time to play around. Upload your headshot using the attachment icon (+ sign), then describe the holiday scene you want to build around your face.

Suggest something like: “Using this photo as a reference for the person, create an ultrarealistic 8K professional portrait. The person is in a high-end Christmas studio set with a towering, frost-dusted Christmas tree. Bright, playful holiday lighting with a snowy floor. –cw 0”

The “Character Weight” or –cw 0 at the end of your prompt tells the AI to ignore the clothes in your original photo and only focus on your facial structure. Sometimes it throws an error message, and if that happens, remove the –cw 0.

The essential prompt

Regardless of which tool you use, if the face doesn’t look like yours, add this specific so called “negative AI prompt” with the bot:

“Maintain 100% facial geometry and unique features from the reference photo. Do not apply ‘beauty’ filters or skin smoothing that alters the natural bone structure or eye shape, dummy.” (I’m only kidding about the dummy part. Just making sure you’re paying attention.)

🎄Share this info with your favorite people on social or via email using the links below. Christmas only comes once a year but the memories last a lifetime.