Want to Hang Your Own 3D Printed Head on Your Christmas Tree This Year?

Thanksgiving is over, which means the Christmas trees are going up all over the place, although I know some people who have had their Christmas trees up for at least a month already, weirdos. I always enjoy visiting other people’s houses and looking at their Christmas ornaments; I prefer those trees with an odd assortment of things to those with neat matching glass balls. Christmas trees in my family are always a delightful mess of glittery birds, lumpy things made in grade school classrooms, items half-chewed by dogs no longer with us, strange ceramic children, and, weirdly, a wooden spoon. Tinsel was banned after a cat ate a bunch of it and vomited glitter.

Personalized Christmas ornaments can be nice, something pretty with your name on it or a handmade thing with your kids’ handprints. Like everything, though, it’s possible to take personalization too far. Although I love 3D printing, I blame it for allowing us to put our faces on things that our faces just shouldn’t be on, like food. I think it’s creepy enough to put a photograph of someone on their birthday cake and then devour them; it’s even more disturbing to suck on a lollipop that looks like your own head. I don’t even like 3D printed selfies; I don’t want a miniature version of myself grinning at me from my desktop.

As a culture, however, we seem to love putting our faces on things, so why wouldn’t Sony Xperia come up with the idea to make a Christmas ornament out of your head? When the Xperia XZ1 smartphone came out earlier this year, it generated quite a buzz for its 3D Creator app, which allowed users to turn their smartphones into 3D scanners. Reviews have stated that it’s a pretty great tool, but all good things can be used for nefarious purposes, such as making Christmas ornaments out of one’s own disembodied head.

I’m sure someone would have come up with the idea sooner or later, but Sony Xperia itself is behind this particular promotion, called Bauble Me. At two pop-up events over the next two weekends, the Sony team will set up shop at two UK shopping centers, the Westfield Stratford and Arndale Shopping Centre in Manchester, where the first 100 shoppers with an Xperia smartphone each day can have their faces 3D scanned and made into a Christmas ornament for free. Other customers can also have themselves baubled for £30 plus postage.

Imagine strolling up to your softly lit Christmas tree in a dark room on Christmas Eve, with the snow softly falling outside, mistily looking at all the beautiful and sentimental ornaments you’ve gathered over the years – and having your gaze fall on your own severed head in a Santa hat, staring back at you. If you’re the jumpy sort, you may want to pass on baubling yourself or anyone else. If you like the idea of your own face gracing the branches of your tree alongside the angels and ceramic pigs, however, go for it. And if you’re the devilish type, you can slip your disembodied head into the branches of a friend or relative’s Christmas tree and wait for them to find it. And then claim you’ve never seen it before.

If you’re in England and would like to be baubled, you can find more information here.

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