Christmas Jello Shots: Santa Hats, Grinch Green and a Fireball Batch
The tray comes out right after the coats go on the bed. Ours is an old cookie sheet lined with a green dish towel. On it sit forty little cups in red, green and white, all trembling a bit as we carry them through the door. Somebody always says we shouldn’t have. Then somebody takes two.
We make them on the Thursday before the party, while the house still smells of pine and clementine peel and nobody needs the fridge yet. Every recipe below either comes straight from our database or is marked as our own kitchen build, so you’ll know which is which.
Before anything red or green
We keep one ratio in our heads for the whole tray. A 3-ounce box takes a cup of boiling water, then a cup of cold liquid that is about half 80-proof liquor and half cold water. That fills sixteen one-ounce cups. Our jello shots guide has the longer version, with the proof table and the reasons behind it.
Plenty of the recipes in our database run hotter, with a full cup of liquor and no cold water at all. Those set softer. They’re perfectly happy in a cup with a little spoon. We only stick to the half-and-half batch for anything we plan to layer or cut.
Red for the front of the tray
Black cherry is the deepest red in the grocery aisle. Hold a cup to the light and it looks like a glass ornament. The Mid-Night Passion is that box with a cup of boiling water and a cup of vodka, and it tastes like the cherry cordials that show up in everyone’s stocking.
Don’t trust the name on the Strawberry Cheesecake Jello Shot. It’s cranberry gelatin set with vanilla vodka, closer to the sauce from Christmas dinner with the sugar turned up, and at our house it’s the first red one to go.
The grown-up red is the Chocolate Covered Cherry, with cherry gelatin and a cup of crème de cacao. We set a few aside for the people who linger near the fire with dessert.
Grinch green
A lime box gives us that sour, slightly unhinged green. For Kamikaze Wigglers, dissolve it in eight ounces of hot water and add four ounces each of vodka and triple sec. The orange softens the lime, so they taste more like candy than cleaning supplies.
Tequila people will want the Sublime, which is lime gelatin with a cup of gold tequila. For the loudest color on the table, though, we use Irish Jell-o, with lime gelatin, light rum and melon liqueur. As written it asks for a cup of each liquor with one cup of water, which is three cups of liquid and more than a single box can hold. We use a cup of boiling water and half a cup of each bottle, and the color stays just as bright.
Our one bit of theater is a red cinnamon candy pressed into the top of each green cup right before serving. A heart two sizes too small. It gets a laugh every year. Building a whole table around the Grinch? Our Grinch drinks cover the glasses that go next to the tray.
Santa hats
There’s no Santa hat shot in our database, so this one is ours. It takes two layers and a bit of patience, and it’s the cup people photograph.
Start with a half-and-half batch from a strawberry or cherry box. Fill clear two-ounce cups about two-thirds of the way and chill them for an hour or so, until the tops feel tacky under a clean finger.
The white comes next. Sprinkle one envelope of unflavored gelatin over a quarter cup of cold water and leave it five minutes, then stir in half a cup of boiling water until it runs clear. Add half a cup of sweetened condensed milk and three-quarters of a cup of Malibu. The milk makes the layer properly opaque, like fresh snow on a fence rail. Now wait. A warm pour melts straight through the red, so it has to come down to room temperature first.
Spoon it over the back of a teaspoon to the top of each cup and chill for two more hours. A mini marshmallow goes on each one as the pom-pom. If you’d rather skip the gelatin altogether, the Santa Shot layers grenadine, green crème de menthe and peppermint schnapps in a glass, and it tastes like a candy cane.
The Fireball batch
Our recipes don’t have a Fireball jello shot either, but cinnamon and cherry belong together in December. Take a cherry box and a cup of boiling water, then add two-thirds of a cup of Fireball and a third of a cup of cold water. At 66 proof it’s weaker than vodka, so it gets more of the cold cup and lands at about the same alcohol as the standard batch. They taste like the red-hots from an old candy dish.
Check the label first. The little bottles at grocery stores and gas stations are often a malt-based product at around half that strength, and with those we’d use the full cup.
Malibu, for the coconut crowd
Coconut rum is so low in proof that a full cup sets without trouble. Malibu Jello uses peach passion-fruit gelatin, and the Pina Colada Jello Shots dissolve the box in a cup of hot pineapple juice instead of water. That juice has to come from a carton or can, because the enzyme in fresh pineapple will keep the gelatin from ever setting.
Neither looks especially Christmas, we’ll admit. Our fix is the pina colada method with a lime box and a snowfall of shredded coconut on top.
Something with bubbles
The last thing on our tray doesn’t come in a cup at all. Champagne Jello Shots mix grape gelatin with a cup of boiling water, cool it to room temperature, then slowly stir in a cup of chilled Champagne. They set in an ice cube tray, and a five-second dip in hot water frees them. We pile the cubes in a glass bowl with tongs, where they catch the tree lights.
Anyone who’d rather have something poured can choose from our Christmas shots. When we’re short a bottle, we ask Cocktail Builder what the cabinet can still make.
The morning of
Everything keeps two or three days in the fridge with lids on, so the day itself belongs to the ham. Crushed candy cane goes on in the final half hour, since the sugar pulls moisture from the gelatin and turns to syrup if it sits. Lift a cup and you get peppermint before anything else.
A plate of cookies sits right beside the tray at our house, along with a handful of small spoons. Those red ones go down very easily, and it’s a long night.
Last modified on November 1, 2026