Snow
Buddies
Twenty-eight years. Twenty-eight snowmen. Twenty-eight different wildlife companions sharing the winter wonderland — a bunny, a red fox, cardinals, a raccoon, a bear, and many more. Nina Aubé's warm, whimsical ongoing series celebrating the most important thing about a snowstorm: you don't have to face it alone.
One Snowman. One Friend. Every Winter.
The Snow Buddies series launched in 1998 with a simple, generous dedication printed on the debut ornament's box: "This series is dedicated to the scores of smiling snowmen, past and present, who remind us how much fun it is to play outdoors. Each year will bring a snowman with a different little animal friend. This year a bunny has come to spend the season." That first snowman wore a green scarf and stocking hat and stood with a small brown bunny at his side — the pairing that established the series' permanent format and its warmest theme: no one should face the cold alone.
The premise is as simple as a series premise can be: a snowman and a different wildlife companion each year. But Hallmark's own description of the series captures something deeper than the format — "Baby, it's cold outside, but friendship warms the heart, and that's what the Snow Buddies series is all about." The wildlife companions across twenty-eight entries cover the full range of North American winter fauna: bunny, red fox, cardinals, raccoon, bear, beaver, owl, deer, and more. Each new animal is a new friendship, a new reason to look forward to December, a new answer to the question of who the snowman will meet this year.
The series has run without interruption since 1998 and continues today. Twenty-eight winters. Twenty-eight companions. The 29th has not yet been named, but winter always brings a new friend to the snowman's field.
"This series is dedicated to the scores of smiling snowmen, past and present, who remind us how much fun it is to play outdoors. Each year will bring a snowman with a different little animal friend."
— Hallmark box dedication, Snow Buddies #1 · 1998Nina Aubé — Small Animals, Big Heart
Nina Aubé is one of Hallmark Keepsake's most beloved artists, and the Snow Buddies series reflects the qualities that define her work across the studio: a deep love of animals, a gift for miniature warmth, and the ability to make a simple scene feel emotionally generous. Aubé describes herself as a huge animal lover who grew up in city apartments where only smaller pets were allowed — birds, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs. Animals figure prominently in everything she designs, especially tiny ones, and in the Snow Buddies series that love of small wildlife finds its fullest expression: a different creature each year, each one rendered with the specific care of someone who has looked closely at animals her whole life.
Aubé's snowman designs also carry traces of her personal life and travels. When she visited Germany, everything she designed developed a European flair — that year's snowman wore an Alpine hat with a feather. Her own sense of playfulness, of finding the funny and warm thing in a winter scene, is what makes the Snow Buddies snowman feel like a specific character rather than a generic figure: the snowman who stands in the field and waits for this year's friend, delighted to see whoever shows up.
Snowman & Bunny — 1998 (#1)
The debut entry: a snowman in a green scarf and stocking hat, standing with a small brown bunny. Made of resin, 3½ inches tall — small enough to hang easily on the tree, detailed enough to see the specific warmth of the scene. The 1998 Snow Buddies ornament established not just the format but the feeling: a snowman and a small animal, both out in the cold, better together than alone. The bunny was the first friend. Twenty-seven more have followed. The snowman always seems happy to see whoever turns up.
Shop the Original Snow Buddies — First in Series →
Red Fox #2 (1999) · Snow Buddies #10 (2007) — the series' first decade · Snow Buddies #28 (2025) — the latest winter friend
Baby, It's Cold Outside — But Friendship Warms the Heart
The Snow Buddies series is built on one of the most straightforward observations in the Keepsake catalog: winter is better with company. The snowman is always the same character — round, smiling, scarfed, hat-wearing, entirely comfortable in the cold that would defeat most things. What changes each year is the companion: the wildlife creature who has wandered in from the woods or fluttered down from the sky or emerged from the underbrush to spend the season with the snowman in the field. The bunny came in 1998. The red fox came in 1999. The cardinals perched on the snowman's arms in 2000. The raccoon arrived in 2001. The bear came in 2002. And so on, year after year, a different creature making its way to the same patient, cheerful snowman.
There is something specifically winter about this premise — the idea that cold weather creates an unusual intimacy between creatures that might not otherwise share space. In the world of Snow Buddies, a snowman and a bear are natural friends, their different natures irrelevant in the face of the season they share. The series is dedicated, as its debut box stated, to the scores of smiling snowmen past and present who remind us how much fun it is to play outdoors. Twenty-eight entries later, that dedication still holds. The snowman is always smiling. The animal friend always looks glad to be there. And the cold, apparently, is not a problem for either of them.
Twenty-eight winters. Twenty-eight friendships. The 29th is still to come.
Tips for the Collection
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01Display all 28 together as a winter wildlife gathering. Twenty-eight snowmen with twenty-eight different animal companions grouped on the tree reads as a complete winter scene — the full cast of the North American woodland, all gathered in one snowy field with the same smiling snowman. The visual effect of the complete collection is a warmly crowded winter tableau that improves with each new addition.
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02The 1998 Bunny #1 is the series' rarest and most collectible early entry. A rare repaint of the debut 1998 ornament exists and commands significant collector interest — evidence of how beloved the series' founding entry became almost immediately. For any collection, the original bunny anchors the series at its starting point and represents the friendship that launched twenty-eight winters of new companions.
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03Gift the year of birth for a personal connection. The Snow Buddies series has run continuously since 1998, covering the childhood and young adult years of an entire generation of collectors. The year-matched Snow Buddies entry — the snowman and animal companion from someone's birth year, or the year they started collecting, or any meaningful December — makes the series' friendship theme personally specific in a way that resonates long past the first Christmas.
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04The series is ongoing — a new companion is selected every year. Unlike completed series with a fixed entry count, the Snow Buddies collection grows annually. The 2025 entry is the 28th. The 29th will arrive with the 2026 holiday season, adding a new animal friend to the snowman's field. Collectors who begin now are joining a tradition that shows no sign of stopping.
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05All 28 Snow Buddies, 1998 through 2025, are at Already Christmas. The complete winter gathering — every animal friend, every year, from the original bunny through the latest companion — is in the collection. Twenty-eight friendships. All here.
Every Snow Buddies — 1998 to 2025
One snowman. A different animal companion each year. Baby, it's cold outside — click any buddy to shop.
A bunny in 1998. A red fox. Cardinals. A raccoon. A bear. Twenty-three more animal friends across twenty-three more winters, each one finding the snowman in the field, each one choosing to spend the season together. Baby, it's cold outside. But friendship warms the heart.
Twenty-eight winters. Twenty-eight friendships. All here.
✦ Part of our Series: Hallmark Keepsake Official Series, Explored ✦