Sending opens soon. For now you can browse every card and watch it move.

Send a card

Paper Lantern

Purveyors of animated greeting cards

Est. 2026

In the window this week

Animated Christmas eCards with an Old-World Glow

Warm cards, the way they used to be. Painted winter scenes that come alive when they are opened: snow falling, windows glowing, the tree lights twinkling. Send one by email, or share the link yourself.

Browse the shelvesWatch a card move

No subscription traps. No adverts on your card. Your recipient’s address is only used to deliver it.

A stone cottage with a slate roof under a crescent moon, a shaggy pony in its open shelter beside it, snowy mountains behind
Nadolig LlawenMerry ChristmasSlate Cottage
Slate Cottage · Wales

Aisle one

Cards from home

For family across the sea, and for the folks back home. Each card carries its greeting in the language of the place.

Aisle two

For every winter occasion

Classic cottage scenes for anyone on your list, a village at midnight for New Year, and a cake by the window for the winter-born.

At the counter

Three steps to send a card

  1. Choose a cardBrowse by country. Open any card to see it move.
  2. Write your messageAdd their name and a few words. You see the card exactly as they will.
  3. Send itNow or on the day you choose, by email, or copy the link and share it yourself.
Detail of The Thatched Cottage: a whitewashed thatched cottage in the snow with a red door, a candle in the window, a robin on a stone wall and sheep in the fields

Look closely. Everything is alive.

  • Snow in three depths, with the odd gust of wind
  • A fire flickering behind each window
  • Tree lights that change their rhythm
  • Smoke curling from the chimney
  • Robins, cats, foxes and ponies that stir now and then
  • Frost glinting, a shooting star now and then

Prefer it still? Every card has a button to stop the animation.

From the shop’s register

New on the shelves

Last posting dates

Never too late

Our cards travel by email, so they arrive on Christmas morning even if you write them on Christmas Eve. Choose the day, and we keep it safe until then. If you are posting paper cards too, here are this year’s last posting dates.

Price list

Honest prices, nothing that renews behind your back

No tax is added to prices in US dollars; pounds and euros include VAT.

  • One card$2.99£1.99 · €2.49Any card in the shop, sent once, with no mention of us in the email.
  • Pack of 10$11.99£8.99 · €9.99Ten cards to use whenever you like, with no short expiry.
  • Year pass$24.99£19.99 · €22.99Every card for a year, paid once. It does not renew.

All the details on the prices page · Your own home or pet, painted for you: cards made for you, from $49.00

From the reading room

Words for your cards

Messages to write, the right day to post, and how sending a card online works.

All our guides