Weird "biblically accurate" angels are the viral Christmas design trend of 2024

Christmas Day has arrived, and many readers will have had their decorations up for several weeks (or months if you're a major retail outlet). But do you have this year's must-have festive tree topper – a biblically accurate angel?

Yep, I hate to break it to you, but the bible does not feature angels that look like winged choirboys. Biblical angels are a lot less... angelic. In fact, they're terrifying. But that's not stopped them from becoming the viral design trend of Christmas 2024 – they certainly beat the worst Christmas decoration designs we've seen, and they could be a great project to try with a 3D printer.

The idea to use biblically accurate angels as tree toppers appears to have come from Reverand Kira Austin-Young, an episcopal priest in the Diocese of Tennessee, and her husband, Michael Schupbach, who's a puppet-maker. They came up with the idea during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I think in, particularly, the times of the world that we’re in, where things seem kind of scary and weird, having a scary and weird angel sort of speaks to people,” Austin-Young told the New York Post. The posts on social media show that the idea is catching on.

Since Renaissance times, churches have tended to depict angels as blonde white kids with fluffy wings, but no such characters exist in the bible. The few descriptions of angels that exist in Revelations and some other books in the Old Testament describe something very different, with one description mentioning six wings each with multiple eyes.

Michael is now giving the same treatment to other angel-inspired pieces.

If you're looking for something to do over Christmas, creating your own tree topper could be a lot of fun. You could do it with a Cricut machine.

For more end of year design fun, see our roundup for the best VFX movies of 2024.