Winter- And Holiday-Inspired Icon Sets [Christmas Freebies]

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Cosima has been an editor at SmashingMag since 2013. Whenever she’s not writing articles for the weekly Smashing Newsletter, she’s probably working on a … More about Cosima ↬

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In this article, Cosima Mielke brings you some holiday-themed icon sets for you that’ll give your creative projects some holiday flair. Perfect for Christmas cards, gift tags, last-minute wrapping paper, or whatever else you can think of. All icons can be downloaded for free! Please consult their licenses or contact the creators before using them in commercial projects. Reselling a bundle is never cool, though. Have a happy holiday season!

Christmas is just around the corner, and what better way to celebrate than with some free goodies? We sifted through the web (and our archives) to find holiday-themed icon sets for you that’ll give your creative projects some holiday flair. Perfect for Christmas cards, gift tags, last-minute wrapping paper, or whatever else you can think of.

All icons can be downloaded for free, but please consult their licenses or contact the creators before using them in commercial projects. Reselling a bundle is never cool, though. Have a happy holiday season!

For even more holiday spirit, you might also want to check out the following posts:

Christmas Joy

Roast turkey, gingerbread men, reindeer, and that comfy Christmas sweater that waits in the back of the closet to be dug out. With 110 icons in total, Anastasia Kolisnichenko’s Christmas icon set has everything a Christmas lover’s heart could ask for. The icons are available in AI, PSD, PNG, and EPS formats and you can customize stroke width, size, color, and shape to your liking. The license allows you to use the illustrations for anything you want – think postcards, posters, gift tags – also commercially.

Christmas Icons Set
Designed by Anastasia Kolisnichenko

Festive Christmas

Do you prefer a more minimalistic approach? Then George Neocleous’ festive Christmas icon set is for you. It includes 20 vector icons in EPS format, with both color and grayscale versions available. These are free to use without any restrictions in personal and commercial projects. Now, imagine that cute nutcracker on a Christmas card…

Festive Christmas Icon Pack
Designed by George Neocleous

Christmas Tales

With their storybook-like look, Manuela Langella’s icon set stirs those familiar warm feelings. In this set, you’ll find 24 icons in total. Among them, Langella has included some unique motifs, such as Santa stuck in a chimney, as well as the obligatory cookies and milk, and stockings hung by the fireplace. The icons come in six formats (AI, PSD, EPS, PDF, SVG, and PNG) and can be customized not only in size, color, and shape but, thanks to full layered Illustrator and Photoshop assets, also assembled in any way you like. Free to use for private and commercial projects.

Christmas Icon Set
Designed by Manuela Langella

Advent

Another from the creative mind of Manuela Langella, is the Advent icon set. It features 25 icons to celebrate the Advent season: decoration, food, and even Santa’s little helper is there to join the party. The download includes AI, EPS, SVG, PNG, and PDF formats that you can modify to your liking. A Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license allows you to use the set in private as well as commercial projects.

Christmas Icons
Designed by Manuela Langella

Holiday Spirit

RocketTheme’s Christmas icon set shines with its love for detail: the little cracks in the gingerbread man, the bubbles on the milk, the chiffon bow wrapped around the present. There are ten icons in the set in total, all of which come as 256×256 PNGs. A Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License allows you to use them in both commercial and private projects, but please be sure to always credit the designer.

Christmas Icon Set
Designed by RocketTheme

Three-In-One

One set, three styles: IconEden’s three-in-one Christmas set comes in a realistic 3D style, a simple shape style, and a button style. The 39 icons are available in vector and pixel format and can be used freely both in private and commercial projects. Talk about versatility!

Christmas Icons
Designed by IconEden

Bold And Colorful

This fun and cartoonish icon set comes from Andrey Stelya. The fresh colors and the unusual way of applying them, by shifting the underlying color layer outside the line art, gives the icons a modern feel. The set includes twelve icons and comes in SVG and PNG (90×90) formats.

New Year Icons
Designed by Andrey Stelya

Sophisticated Line Art

Now this is a versatile set! Olha Filipenko created 78 icons in AI format with everything winter and holiday-themed: sweets, snowflakes, candles, ornaments, even a cute little postage stamp. There are so many ways to use the minimalistic line art with a unique and sophisticated twist.

Christmas Icon Set
Designed by Olha Filipenko

Sweet Christmas

How about some Christmas cheer as sweet as the icing on the cookies? The icon set of Bangkok-based designer Sunbzy is striking with an unusual pastel color palette. The 20 icons can be downloaded for free as an AI file and are as in-demand as Grandma’s cookies!

Christmas Icons
Designed by Sunbzy

Outdoor Holidays

Explore the snowy mountains, take your friends skiing, or go ice-skating on the frosty lake with Benjamin Bely’s beautiful winter icon set that cherishes these outdoor winter moments. The bundle consists of twelve icons in AI format and can be downloaded for free. All the love of those chilly adventures from the warmth of your home.

Christmas Icon Set Outdoor
Designed by Benjamin Bely

Pixel Art

Pixel time! Anna Sereda’s and Maryan Ivasyk’s icon set looks as if it came straight out of a Christmas arcade game. There are 16 little pixel artworks in the bundle for you to use in personal and commercial projects. Available in AI, EPS, PSD, SVG, PNG, and JPEG formats.

Pixel Christmas Icon Set
Designed by Anna Sereda and Maryan Ivasyk

Christmas Magic

This fine small set comes from Dasha Ermolova. It includes four motifs – a snow globe, a stocking, a Christmas wreath, and a ball ornament. The EPS is free to download. This is minimalistic line art with a nifty touch.

Holiday Icons
Designed by Dasha Ermolova

Fresh Classics

With her Christmas icon set, Magda Gogo gives classical motifs, like stockings, Christmas trees, and candy canes, a fresh makeover. There are eight icons in the bundle, and they come in both EPS and AI formats. True classics never go out of style.

Christmas Icons
Designed by Magda Gogo

Cute Winter

Another lovely set of flat illustrations comes from Vector4Free. The softly colored motifs range from snowflakes and stockings to a pipe-smoking hipster reindeer. 33 icons are available in AI, EPS, SVG, PSD, and PNG formats. The Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License allows you to use them for any purpose, including commercially as long as you give appropriate credit.

Christmas And Winter Icons
Designed by Vector4Free

Watercolor Leaves And Branches

Even though nature is sparse in winter in many parts of the world, there are little treasures you can find on your walk through the forest: pine cones, fir needles, acorns. To celebrate their beauty, Freepik released an icon set with watercolor leaves and branches. They are available in AI and EPS formats and can be used for personal and commercial projects as long as you credit the designer.

Watercolor Set Leaves And Branches
Designed by Freepik

Gingerbread Times

What would Christmas be without cookies? Anna Zhemchuzhina created a lovely little set of six gingerbread-inspired icons that look as if they came freshly baked out of the oven. Available as PSD, these icons look good enough to eat!

Gingerbread cookies
Designed by Anna Zhemchuzhina

Retro Joy

Spread the joy! Non-traditional colors and a playful design are at the base of Livi Po’s retro-inspired Christmas icon set. The ten icons are available in AI format, and a wonderful new take on the truly retro past.

Retro Christmas Icon Set
Designed by Livi Po

Lovely Christmas

Ever dream of spending the holidays in a cabin in the woods? You go out to choose the Christmas tree, spend time sitting by the fireplace, and drink tea as you watch the snow fall. That’s the feeling that Freepik captures with their Lovely Christmas Icon Set. Classic, calm Christmas colors and the choice of motifs bring some wintery flair to your designs. The 20 icons are available in EPS and AI and can be used for free in personal and commercial projects as long as you credit the designer.

Lovely Christmas Icon Set
Designed by Freepik

Nostalgic Holidays

Also designed by the folks at Freepik, this cheerful set consists of 16 AI and EPS icons with a unique nostalgic ’50s charm. You can use them for free in both personal and commercial projects, but please remember to credit the designer.

Round Christmas Icons
Designed by Freepik

Snow Flurries

Christmas and snow go together like bread and butter. To add a bit of those snow flurries to your projects, Teela Cunningham has hand-drawn a set of snowflakes and turned them into vector graphics. The download includes AI and EPS files for private use only.

Hand-Drawn Vector Snowflakes
Designed by Teela Cunningham

Ho Ho Ho!

James Oconnell’s Ho Ho Ho icon set features ten Christmasy line art icons with a nifty twist; some lines are dotted while others are highlighted with an accent color. The centerpiece of the set is a squiggly “Ho Ho Ho” framed by snowflakes. The icons are available in AI format and you’re free to use them as you please.

Ho Ho Ho Icons
Designed by James Oconnell

Classics Revisited

Another set that pairs minimalistic line art with some lovely details comes from Cvijovic Zarko. These twelve icons cover classical Christmas motifs (a present, a snowman, reindeer, a candle, a sleigh, and more) and are available in EPS format.

Christmas Icons
Designed by Cvijovic Zarko

New Year Celebration

In order to help kick-start the celebrations, here is a fantastic free Christmas and Winter-themed icon set to use in your own seasonal designs. With 27 color outlines, this New Year Celebration icon set has everything one could ask for. This will help you quickly design a holiday-themed UI, website, theme, or presentation.

New Year Celebration icon set
Designed by Iconscout

Holiday Flair

A versatile three-in-one set that can be used in both personal and commercial projects comes from the folks at IconShock. It includes 40 icons with everything you’ll need to add some holiday flair to your projects — think presents, candles, stockings, a snowman, and much more. The vectors come in three styles (line, flat and line with colors) and are 100% editable.

Christmas Winter Icons
Designed by IconShock

Geeky Christmas

Last but not least, to give the season of reindeer and Christmas elves a bit of a geeky glam, Tatiana Lapina designed 54 geeky Christmas vector graphics. Among them, you’ll discover characters from Star Wars and famous computer games, geeky tech stuff, even a delivery drone to deliver the presents. The illustrations come in SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, and PNG formats and are free to use in personal and commercial projects.

Geeky Christmas
Designed by Tatiana Lapina

Did We Miss Anything?

Have you designed a free holiday icon set yourself? Is there perhaps that one set you keep using year after year? We’d love to hear about your favorites in the comments below!

Further Reading

Smashing Editorial (mrn)