Winter Road Happy Holidays Card Set

Most holiday cards make a statement. This one creates a mood.

A horse pulls a sleigh down a snow-covered road, two passengers bundled against the cold, a church spire rising in the distance, the sky lit faintly at the horizon. It is the feeling of being on the way somewhere, that particular mix of cold and purpose and warmth ahead that belongs to the season before any of the decorations come into it. "Happy Holidays" sits in the upper corner in dark maroon script, quiet enough that the scene does the work.

The design comes from a chromolithograph after a painting by W. C. Bauer, published by Raphael Tuck and Sons of London, a firm that became one of the largest publishers of Christmas cards in the English-speaking world. The image has that weight to it. Not something designed to look old. Something that is.

Finding a card that reads as winter without reading as Christmas is harder than it should be. Most of them plant a flag. This one shows you the road.

The set includes 24 folded cards, each 4 x 5.5 inches, printed on smooth 100 lb cardstock with a blank inside, and 24 white A2 envelopes ready for the mail.

For the year you want to send the feeling, not the occasion.