Christmas
Angels
Eight angels named for the things Christmas asks most of us — Peace, Love, Hope, Harmony, Remembrance, Good Cheer, Melody, Joy. Each one arriving with a message inscribed on her base. Each one a small sculpture of something larger.
Angels Named for What We Need Most
The Christmas Angels series began in 2018 with a choice that immediately distinguished it from other angel ornament collections: naming the first angel Peace, and inscribing her base with the words "Let there be peace on earth." Not a generic angel. A specific virtue given an angelic form. That distinction — each ornament carrying both a name and a personal inscription, a heavenly messenger with a particular message — defines the entire series and gives it an emotional depth that purely decorative angel collections rarely achieve.
Launched by Hallmark Keepsake Artist Joanne Eschrich, the series was inspired by her lifelong connection to faith, family, and the particular meaning of Christmas. Eschrich grew up just south of Boston in a very big, very loud Catholic Portuguese family where holidays were huge celebrations — and that background of love and faith infused the series she created. For her, angels are not abstract symbols. They are messengers of specific things: Peace. Love. Hope. Harmony. Remembrance. Good Cheer. Each one arriving with its meaning made tangible through sculpted detail, metal wings, fabric accents, and a message on the base that connects the ornament directly to the person who receives it.
The series now carries eight angels, with the 2024 Melody and 2025 Joy entries continuing the tradition under artist Joanne Wright — and the vocabulary of virtues grows more meaningful with each year's addition.
"I like my work to reflect tradition and relevance, which is a fine balance."
— Joanne Eschrich, Series Founder & Hallmark Keepsake Artist
Peace #1 (2018) · Love #2 (2019) · Hope #3 (2020)
Two Joannes, One Unbroken Mission
The Christmas Angels series has been carried by two artists — both named Joanne — whose shared commitment to faith-infused, elegantly detailed angel portraiture makes the series feel continuous even across the transition.
Joanne Eschrich grew up in a large, faith-centered Portuguese-American Catholic family where holidays were major celebrations — and that inheritance of love, faith, and festivity infuses everything she creates. Her daughters have modeled for her angels and brought her original sculptures to school for show-and-tell. She has described her goal as making work that balances tradition and relevance, and the Christmas Angels series is that balance made ornamental. She sculpted the first six angels in wax, using Hallmark's proprietary sculpting material, and worked with an editor on the inscriptions that give each piece its personal dimension.
Joanne Wright continues the series with the same commitment to elegant, faith-grounded angel portraiture that Eschrich established. The 2024 Melody and 2025 Joy entries maintain the series' signature elements — tall graceful figures, metal wings, fabric ribbon accents, glitter, and the meaningful virtue-as-name approach — while bringing Wright's own sculptural voice to the heavenly messenger tradition. The vocabulary of Christmas virtues continues to grow.
Peace — 2018 (#1)
The series debut established every element that would define the collection: a graceful angel over five inches tall, carrying meaningful botanical and symbolic objects — in Peace's case, an Easter lily and a dove — with metal wings, glitter, and fabric ribbon embellishments. The inscription on her base reads "Let there be peace on earth." Joanne Eschrich has said that for years she was inspired by the kindness and tranquility that angels represent, and Peace was her first opportunity to sculpt that inspiration into a collector's series. It remains the foundational piece — the one that started the vocabulary of virtues that every angel since has carried forward.
Shop Peace — The First Angel →Eight Virtues, Eight Messengers
Each angel in the series carries a name — a virtue — and a message inscribed on her base. Together, they form a roster of the things Christmas most asks us to hold onto: peace, love, hope, harmony, remembrance, good cheer, melody, joy. Here are all eight, with their inscriptions.
Remembrance #5 (2022) · Good Cheer #6 (2023)
Angels With Something to Say
Most angel ornaments are beautiful and silent. The Christmas Angels series chose a different approach: each angel arrives with a specific message, inscribed on her base, addressed directly to whoever receives her. "Let there be peace on earth." "Love be your strength, your comfort, your joy." "Hope brings new life." "In memory and in love." These are not decorative phrases. They are invitations — to feel a specific thing, to be reminded of a specific virtue, to carry a specific grace into the Christmas season and beyond.
The 2022 Remembrance angel is the clearest example of this intention. Christmas is not only a celebration. For many people, it is also a season of grief — the first Christmas without someone, or the tenth, or the thirtieth. An angel named Remembrance, carrying an inscription explicitly about memory and love, gives that grief a home on the tree. It says: you are allowed to bring your loss here. This ornament holds space for it.
That is what distinguishes the Christmas Angels series. Not the beauty of the sculpting, not the quality of the materials, not even the names. It is the conviction that Christmas angels have something specific to say — and that what they say matters to the people who receive them.
Decoration Tips
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01Display at eye level so the inscription on the base is readable. Each angel's base inscription is part of the ornament's meaning. Position them where a viewer can actually read the words — not buried in upper branches where the message is invisible. The inscription is what makes these ornaments personal.
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02The Remembrance angel is a meaningful tribute gift. Of all eight entries, Remembrance is the one most frequently given in memory of someone who has died. It says what is hardest to say in December. If you know someone facing their first Christmas without a loved one, this ornament is one of the most thoughtful gifts in the Hallmark Keepsake catalog.
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03Group the series together for maximum impact. Eight angels named for eight virtues, displayed together on adjacent branches, create a visual and thematic statement about what Christmas means — peace, love, hope, harmony, remembrance, good cheer, melody, joy. Individually they are beautiful. Together they are a theology of the season.
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04Match the angel to the person. Peace for the peacemaker in your family. Hope for someone going through difficulty. Love for a new couple's first Christmas. Remembrance for someone grieving. The series' virtue-based naming makes personalized gifting almost effortless.
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05Warm white lights bring out the metal wing shimmer. The metal wing accents and glitter embellishments that appear throughout the series are designed for warm-toned light. Warm white or amber tree lights make the wings glow; cool blue-white strands flatten the metalwork and reduce the celestial quality of each piece.
Display Tips
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01Peace #1 (2018) is the foundational piece. Every series has its origin point, and Peace carries the meaning of all the angels that followed. Collectors who discover the series mid-run often go back for Peace first — both for completeness and because the founding piece establishes the vocabulary for everything that comes after.
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02The Hope butterfly (2020) has particular resonance. The 2020 Hope angel — with her monarch butterfly and inscription "Hope brings new life" — arrived during one of the most difficult years in recent memory. For collectors, it carries the weight of that year and the importance of what it promised. An angel with unusual historical context.
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03Note the artist transition at #7 (2024). The series moves from Joanne Eschrich to Joanne Wright with the 2024 Melody. Collectors who know this see two chapters in the series: Eschrich's six (2018–2023) and Wright's growing contribution. Both maintain the core visual language — tall figures, metal wings, fabric ribbon, meaningful inscription.
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04The series pairs naturally with other angel collections. Collectors of Hallmark's Heirloom Angels or Mary's Angels series will find the Christmas Angels a natural companion — different aesthetics, but the same core devotion to angelic portraiture as a form of seasonal meaning-making.
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05Keep the original boxes — the inscriptions are also on the packaging. The meaningful inscriptions and ornament descriptions are part of the packaging experience. In-box condition preserves both the sculptural and the contextual dimensions of each piece.
All 8 Angels — 2018 to 2025
Peace. Love. Hope. Harmony. Remembrance. Good Cheer. Melody. Joy. Click any angel to shop.
Peace. Love. Hope. Harmony. Remembrance. Good Cheer. Melody. Joy. Eight words for what Christmas asks of us. Eight angels carrying those words on their bases, waiting to deliver them.
That is what angels are for.
✦ Part of our Series: Hallmark Keepsake Official Series, Explored ✦