Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: December and Christmas 2009

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Over the last months our readers were complaining about the low quality of wallpapers featured in the Desktop Wallpaper Calendar series here on Smashing Magazine. To keep the very high quality of the competition and motivate artists and designers to put more thoughts and ideas into creating original and beautiful wallpapers, we carefully reviewed our quality guidelines and decided to select featured wallpapers more strictly. Consequently, over 65% of wallpapers submitted to us in November unfortunately didn’t make it to this post.

We may have been a bit too strict or we may have been not strict enough – please let us know what you think and please also let us know how we can improve the quality of this series!

This post features 45 free desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free.

Please notice:

  • all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
  • you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

So which wallpapers have we received for December 2009?

Christmas couple

“Wallpaper Christmas couple is devoted to the coming holidays.” Designed by Egor Kosten from Ukraine.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Xmas Tree

Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Irkutsk, Russia.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Santa’s Beach

"”Dear kids of the World: No gifts this christmas, just big waves. Santa”" Designed by Cafundo Estudio Criativo from Brazil.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Merry Skipmass

“Skipvine Interactive December’s Calendar.” Designed by Ionut Zamfir from Romania.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Snow queen

Designed by Helena Lunding from Sweden.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

TwoThousandTen

“Designed by Xabiso Ndaba” Designed by Xabiso Ndaba from United Kingdom.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Fake Rudolf

Designed by Monica Corduneanu from Romania.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

X-mas

“Winter is my favourite season and December is the heart of winters, it gives us shortest sunny days and longest cold nights , no doubt its the month of laziness but Christmas isthe most enjoyable and colorful event of this month so this wallpaper is a gift for last celebration of this year with this hope that new year will bring good days for all of us.” Designed by NarjisNaqvi from Pakistan.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Red december

Designed by Catherine Galeano from Bogota, Colombia.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Christmas Ribbons

“I love winter so much. It is all about Christmas season. Red colored ribbon signify the waiting for the Christmas.” Designed by vamsiraco from India.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Where Jelly Beans Are Born

Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Irkutsk, Russia.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Crazy Santa

“This Santa I made for Xmas game in coopeation with Digibrand.” Designed by Alexander Bickov from Latvia.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Christmas Snowman

“I wanted to make something different for this Christmas , so this turned out! I like it very much , especially the collors, so i hope that you will love it too!” Designed by Alexandra Ipate from Romania.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Numbers

“Large numbers on a paper background.” Designed by Valerie Morgan from USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Starrain

“A calendar for December wih a nice little girl standing in a rain of stars.” Designed by mooti from Germany.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

swing girl

Designed by Soodabeh Amirakbari from Iran.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Whychristmas

“A calendar showing the special days in December. Get in the seasonal mood by visiting – one of the biggest Christmas sites on the web!” Designed by James Cooper from UK.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Dance around Christmas

“Everyone is having a Merry Christmas with friends and family.” Designed by Chris Alexander (Yipori) from England.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Santa’s searching

“For so long, I ‘ve been wondering how Santa managed to collect all the gifts for the good guys among us. And now I’m convinced maybe he’s using some hi-tech help. May you all have a beautiful and inspirational Xmas time!” Designed by Samoo from Italy.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Snow Deers

“”A month of love and joy for all, beneath the white snow fall… Its cold, snowy and icy on the outside, but christmas keeps us all warm on the inside.” Designed by Arjun Raj Kumar.S from India.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Stars and Stripes

Designed by Fabio Toscani from Italy.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Rounded Xmas

“I wish all Smashing Magazine readers a wonderful Christmas time!” Designed by Federica Sibella from Italy.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Christmas

“A Christmas Celebration.” Designed by Karna Shukla from India.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Hurry up, Rudolph!

“Well, the economic crisis even hit Santa Claus and he had to sell his sleigh and fire aaaaaall the reindeers – except for Rudolph, who now has to drag all the presents through the snow on his own….:) Initially I was inspired by a little Santa Claus ceramic figure I had bought recently. I just loved it so much, I had to make some kind of artwork out of it. Merry Christmas!” Designed by Nicole Bauer from Germany.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

uh Oh Snow

“The snowmen are the only ones unhappy about the situation. Happy holidays.” Designed by Kristen M. Leonard from USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Seek Him

“I designed this wallpaper for inspiration during this Christmas season. It really encourages me to live in faith and hope.” Designed by Millicent Bowman from USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Grass killer

“My wallpaper Grass Killer was inspired by sad and cold weather this month.” Designed by Egor Kosten from Ukraine.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Santa Lost His Hat

“With the rush of the holidays, how can you blame him.” Designed by Phidev Inc. from USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Xmas in Happy World

“A simple wallpaper to celebrate December and Xmas in a happy way.” Designed by Denis from Hong Kong.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Electricity

“The magic of Christmas light.” Designed by Giada Degli Agostini from Italy.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Anyway it’s my Umbrella.

“I draw this from seeing a beautiful thai woman walk with her umbrella on the street.” Designed by Chorkaew Patanukom from Thailand.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Winter Magic

Designed by Pietje Precies from The Netherlands.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Sad Mushroom

“Sometimes the holidays can make you feel blue ^__^Love hurts….♥ ouch!” Designed by Martha Garzon from Colombia, USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Nyc Grunge

“Image taken with iPhone in NYC. Grunge design appied.” Designed by Corey Cassaw from USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Happy Families are Made in China

“Outsourcing at it’s finest. Since all of our appliances and machines are made far east for the buying people far west, this wallpaper ironically briefly glimpses in the future of Mankind, but it is also homage to Tolstoy’s Ana Karenina and his thoughts on happy families: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.All of this was compiled from free resources around the Web. Background snow photo courtesy of Got3d” Designed by Antonio Hadrovic from Croatia.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Kiss

"Keep it smashingly simple." Designed by Umut Isbilir from Turkey.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Holiday Homeboys

“the festive frat boys, home for the holidays. make them apart of your december!” Designed by Justin Wright from USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Feast of Desserts

“Desktop wallpapers with whimsical flair.” Designed by April Joy E. Jasmin from Philippines.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Letter to Santa

“This wallpaper is one panel of a dark Christmas comic that we’ve been working on lately. We were inspired by old style Coca Cola commercials and wanted to give it a similar look. We’re planning to unveil the whole comic in a month on the Wet Raspberry Comics website.” Designed by Stefan and Xenia from USA.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Colorful Christmas

“”Colorful Christmas” is just my vision about this holiday, everything shines and it’s so colorful!” Designed by Tha’s Trizoli from Brazil.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Merry Christmas

“Though we hate to admit it, Christmas is all about dropping our design shield and basking in the glory of gawdy lights, terrible tunes, and even worse Christmas cards. This wallpaper celebrates in ‘in-your-face’ side of Christmas, with enough lights to bring down the power grid. Have a great holiday.” Designed by chopeh from UK.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Xmas Gifts

Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Irkutsk, Russia.

Smashing Wallpaper - december 09

Join in next month!

Please notice that we respect the ideas and motivation behind artists’ work which is why we’ve given artists full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience through their works. And this is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us, but designed from scratch by the artists themselves.

Thanks to all designers for participation. Join in next month! And smashing December and a smashing new year, folks!

The Smashing Editorial loves high-quality content and cares about little details. We also believe that content and design are crafts worth sharpening.

  1. 101

    I absolutely love this month’s collection! I know you can’t please everybody all of the time ~ but I for one am really happy with all of the Christmas-themed wallpapers … Thank you!

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  2. 102

    So funny that in one wallpaper they put the date of sint nicholas day thats just genius

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  3. 103

    *o* i like that you went through and only posted the high quality ones..however I am still iffy about some of them like the WhyChristmas one…

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  4. 104

    Very nicely done, all! I especially like “Christmas couple”, “Numbers”, “Winter Magic”, “Happy Families are Made in China”, “Merry Christmas”, and “Xmas Gifts”. Great message from Millicent Bowman on “Seek Him” as well.

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  5. 105

    This is one of the most amazing collections! I simply loved it! I liked all of them, I dint find a single wallpaper that I dint like … so, great job designers … good job SM for the quality control :)
    like I said i loved them all but my favorites are:
    1. x-mas tree
    2. Christmas Couple
    3. Red December
    4. Christmas Ribbons
    5. Santa Searching
    6. Snow Deer
    7. Hurry up Rudolph
    8. Electricity
    9. K.I.S.S

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  6. 106

    Perhaps SM could come up with a post/place for those wallpapers that dint make the cut!! Those who want the quality stay here, and those who are curious to see all the great minds at work, would not mind seeing that too!

    Other idea would be too post those wallpapers in a flickr pool. To create a wallpaper is not a joke, it takes hours hours of effort before the computer, and many more visualizing. Felt SM could be treat them better!

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  7. 107

    smashing magazine forever!! THANX so much for keeping this wallpaper-thing up!!!!! thank you thank you thank you!

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  8. 108

    Again !! My work is not included in this month also like November… was that .. that bad… I dunno !!

    Anyways….

    Waiting for the reply from smashing magazine.

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  9. 109

    Aww why no 1920*1200 for Starrain, I love it but it looks pixely when stretched.

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  10. 110

    Muy Bonitos los fondos de pantalla en particular me gusto mas el de santa en la playa gracias el que dice que no va a ver regalos porque hay grandes olas jajaja esta bueno

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  11. 111

    I love that so many comments are about how there are so many Christmas themed designs. DUH it’s because the majority of the people celebrate Christmas hence the majority are Christmas papers.
    Let’s stop being so “PC”…

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  12. 112

    I calculated it out and 64% of these are Christmas themed. I don’t think that’s a bad ratio. I think people just like to complain.

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  13. 113

    Out-freakin-standing!

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  14. 114

    like them all…’Any it is my umbrella’ and ‘Why Christmas’ are out of the box … my favs :)

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  15. 115

    really nice collection of calender and without calender pics i like that so much

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  16. 116

    I am officially ignoring this.
    I’m so sick and tired of the Christmas hysteria every year.
    I despise consumerist events and frenzy associated with that.

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  17. 117

    Amazingggggggggg!!!! i love all these wallpapers.

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  18. 118

    Thanks you! I like red ribbon ^^

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  19. 119

    Amen to the comments about there being too many Christmas/winter themed one. Not all of us live in cold climates!

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  20. 120

    I especially love “Stars and Stripes!” You don’t have to celebrate Christmas to appreciate pretty, sparkly things and gifts!

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  21. 121

    Wowwwwwwwww!!!
    Estan re buenos los wallpapers!!!

    Y me encanta la Navidad también!!!

    son TODOS LINDOS!!!

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  22. 122

    I have two grouses.

    1) You should continue selecting wallpapers you like and forget about other people’s quality standards. This new thing about more stringent quality makes no sense to me.

    2) Way too many Xmas wallpapers man. Just way too many.

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  23. 123

    It just hit me that I could use these (and past, and other) wallpapers for my twitter page – working on it now. It’d be neat to see this done specifically for twitter. Thanks for all the great work (from another guy who loves Christmas).

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  24. 124

    *Generic complaint about the fact that there are too many Christmas wallpapers*

    Are you guys serious? It’s December.

    I don’t celebrate Christmas but I’m not oblivious to the fact that a LOT of people do. I doubt all these designers got together and all decided to make a Christmas wallpaper (for free) just to annoy you. As TrapKick pointed out only 64% are Christmas related.

    Anyway, I’ve set my wallpaper in the office to ‘Merry Christmas’ by Chopeh. Mainly for the benefit of colleagues walking past :)

    Thanks SM for posting these, and thanks to all the designers for making them!

    TonyC.

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  25. 125

    These are the best yet…

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  26. 126

    ohhh my! The whiners, complainers, ungrateful naysayers. If you don’t like it – make your own, or MOVE ON!

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  27. 127

    Wow, this are really impressive. I especially like Starrain by Mooti, the girl with the orange umbrella is so striking!

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  28. 128

    Much beautiful work, but rather odd… nothing really of winter solstice or “Christ”mas? I will have to create my own….

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  29. 129

    hi my name is david , happly christmas

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  30. 130

    I love Smashing Mag’s wallpapers and come back EVERY month to update my desktop. This time I picked “Winter Magic”.

    As a guy, I do wish the list offered more masculine designs. This month’s selection is more “girlie” than usual.

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  31. 131

    Year ends fun begins…..

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  32. 132

    Good collections, but if it would be better if the focus is on New Year instead of X’mas……

    Cheers
    ~ Rahul

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  33. 133

    WOW!

    I have to say I was really disappointed last month when I couldnt even find one wallpaper I liked. Definitely improved that this month because I really cant decide which to use! (Since this means changing to a new one every few days, I think its awesome!)

    Thanks so much for picking only awesome ones!

    Xeni

    P.S. I think there is an almost too large focus on Christmas, perhaps a few more New Year, Yule, Hanukkah or just Winter themes would have been great, but since this was probably due to artist choice and not SM’s fault, I’ll forgive ;)

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  34. 134

    Much better than the ones chosen from November, in my opinion. Great selection! Love ‘em.

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  35. 135

    Absolutely brilliant wallpapers — this month and always.

    And just let the Scrooges be Scrooges. The spirit of Humbug will always be with us and is heard one day a year, but the Spirit of Christmas lives on 365 days a year!!

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  36. 136

    Really nice wallpapers.
    Greetings from West-Germany

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  37. 137

    It was a good decision to only feature 45 wallpapers. Less is more! There are very nice wallpapers this month. Thank you!!!

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  38. 138

    way too many christmas themes… i’m giving up on these collections for now

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  39. 139

    ohh nice, very good , and more
    Desktopwallpaper4u.com

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  40. 140

    Another great collection!

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  41. 141

    Nice collection! I definitely found several that I wanted to use. I do wish there was more than one religious one. As secular as it has become, Christmas is still a religious holiday.

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  42. 142

    I came here for December wallpaper but couldn’t find anything other than x-mas. But smashing mag should not forget not everyone is christian. ;) Happy X-mas to all anyways.

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  43. 143

    GOOD ILLUZTRATIONZ….
    I love it….
    freeky color zenze….:)

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  44. 144

    Muy Lindos los fondos.

    Beatiful wallpapers!! good

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  45. 145

    thought ya might like

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  46. 146

    Great collection. Thanks for including mine (Why Christmas). I love ‘Christmas Snowmen’ and ‘Stars and Stripes’.

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  47. 147

    Nice ones among those, well done!

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  48. 148

    Can we start a pool from now on and bet on which number post will be the first to complain about the quality of the wallpapers? Suggestion: you don’t like it, you don’t use it. You think you can do better, prove it.

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  49. 149

    humml , great too ,

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  50. 150

    A couple of nice ones here (even a scrooge like me can appreciate it, lol!)

    I’m also not big on Christmas (it’s been so commercialized, and everyone cares more about gifts than family these days), but some of these wallpapers really caught my eye!

    I’m using ‘Where Jelly Beans Are Born’ as my wallpaper… :)

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  51. 151

    It’s ever fantastic!

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  52. 152

    terimakasih untuk wallpapernya…………GBU
    Thank….

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  53. 153

    Is something wrong with SM server today??? I am trying to view Calendar but 505 error is coming :(

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  54. 154

    wow – i think some of the best ones yet!

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  55. 155

    marvels,
    These wow. thanks to all

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  56. 156

    Wow! Amazing! Those are the best calendars I’ve ever seen.

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  57. 157

    AWESOME WALLPAPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  58. 158

    hi
    All people marry Christmas December 2009.
    Coming soon welcome to 2010 year.
    i prayer for healthy and wealthy.
    good luck for every body.

    tapaungthi
    myanmar
    yangon

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  59. 159

    I like Fake Rudolf. It’s already on my desktop :] thank you!

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  60. 160

    it has great wallpapers,i lov it keep it up happy new year

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  61. 161

    For me is a poor colection this month! I’m very disapointed! Not the best art work and desing SM is capable to publish . :(

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  62. 162

    Very nice wallpapers. I particularly like the purple one with the jelly beans. Any chance the creator could make one without the calendar?

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  63. 163

    Love the “Seek Him” wallpaper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I wish there would be more Christian wallpapers!!!!!!!!!

    For Jesus is the reason why we can be creative!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    And Jesus is the reason for this season… So, keep CHRIST in Christmas & don’t turn it into X-mas!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Lots of blessings!!!!!!
    Petra

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  64. 164

    Can’t wait till’ they get the New Years wallpapers up!

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  65. 165

    favourite world

    March 5th, 2010 4:07 am

    thanks for sharing the interesting post,

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  66. 166

    thank u 4 ever

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  67. 167

    lovely collection:D

    0

  1. 1

    They’re nice, but why are so many of them Christmas themed? Not everyone celebrates Christmas, I’d like to see a few more December/New Year/Winter/Neutral ones too!

    +1

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