Earlier this month, I found myself curious about the depth and bredth of winter holiday philately, so I thought I'd ask our readers to send us some of their favorite examples — and a few of you were kind enough to do just that!
If you meant to submit your favorite winter holiday stamp, cancel, cover, or other philatelic material and didn't get the chance, there's still time. Just send us an email at digitalcontent@stamps.org, tell us what items fill you with the holiday spirit, and we'll update the article with your story and/or images!
My granddaughter created this framed Christmas present for us years ago. There are 5 of us in our family and she made up a representative stamp for each of us based on her perception at that time. Her uncle lives in the mountains and loves the outdoors, I collect stamps, her grandmother (my wife) does needlework and knitting, her father is in publishing and her nickname is Plum. This framed gift occupies a treasured spot on our bookshelves.
APS Member (Anonymous)
There are two post offices in Canada that offer beautiful seasonal postmarks that can transform even the most pedestrian piece of mail into something very special in December.
Christmas Island, Nova Scotia has a most impressive circular seasonal cancel which is used to frank mail in red, green or sometime in both red and green!
These particular covers were part of a Christmas Mail Art project. Real candy canes were laid on the left side of each envelope, and carefully sprayed with a Christmas colour. The candy canes were removed —leaving a distinct pattern that could be easily outlined in black ink and coloured. A variety of stickers were randomly affixed to fill some of the negative space.
The completed envelopes were sent to Christmas Island, Nova Scotia where Postmaster Hughena MacKinnon did a great job franking each cover.
I had the honour of designing a special Hanukkah postmark for Disraeli, Quebec. Now that we have grandchildren, I thought it was time to involve the oldest in the hobby. My grandson did his best Menorah drawing in 2022 and in 2023, he announced to his Zaidey that he wanted to draw a Dreidel. We worked on the basic shapes and Hebrew letters to render a convincing cachet. Both designs were printed on 8.5x11 Presentation Matte papers with a Epson 3880 ink jet printer. The finished envelopes were carefully scored, cut and glued.
In each case Mâitre de Poste Nathalie Fortier did an excellent job postmarking the envelopes on the day of issue.
Canada Post deserves high marks for making this service available to collectors and to those who want to send friends and loved ones something special for the holidays. Both postmasters report getting worldwide requests for these seasonal cancels!
Irv Osterer
Did you know that every year, Americans purchase two and a half times as many poinsettias as they do live Christmas trees? Poinsettias help people the world over celebrate the holiday season. Aside from their iconic holiday-themed red-and-green color combo, poinsettias have taken their place in Christmas celebrations because of local legends and larger religious symbolism. But in the U.S., the rise of the plant’s popularity in the 1960s can be attributed to Paul Ecke Jr., who gave away potted plants as set decor for TV talk shows, Christmas musicals, and designer photo shoots. His media savvy helped make poinsettias synonymous with “the Christmas flower.”
The Armchair Philatelist
All images courtesy of the respective authors. Thank you to everyone who contributed!
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