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September 25, 2020
Holiday Delights Stamps
• Put Some Colorful Charm on Your Season’s Greetings
Photo: Holiday Delights Stamps, a prancing reindeer with antlers; an ornament tied with a bow and ready to hang; a tree topped with a star; and a stocking holding a teddy bear and a sprig of holly.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2020 — Celebrate the holiday season (in the USA) with Holiday Delights, a new stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Inspired by folk art but with a modern graphic vibe, these charming designs will add a touch of whimsy to your holiday mailings.
Illustrator Kirsten Ulve used a traditional palette of red, green, and white. She channeled her love of Christmas, vintage ornaments, and Scandinavian folk art to create unique digital illustrations of four holiday icons:
- A prancing reindeer with antlers
- An ornament tied with a bow and ready to hang
- A tree topped with a star
- A stocking holding a teddy bear and a sprig of holly
“Forever” and “USA” appear along the stamp’s edge. Art director Antonio Alcalá was the stamp designer, USPS stated.
“German immigrants brought the tradition of the indoor decorated tree to America. Early on, decorations included candles and homemade ornaments,” said Secretary of the Board of Governors Michael J. Elston, dedicating official for the Postal Service. “With these stamps, the Postal Service is capturing the vintage spirit of Christmas in hopes they will convey the joy of the season and bring to mind happy memories of Christmases past.”
Once the tradition of decorating trees caught on, in the 1890s, Woolworth’s five-and-dime stores began to import handblown ornaments. By the mid-20th century, Americans were buying hundreds of thousands of decorations each Christmas, USPS elaborated.
The origin of hanging stockings is lost in myth, but according to legend, St. Nicholas heard of a widower who could not pay his daughters’ dowries. St. Nick dropped gold coins down the man’s chimney, and they landed in the girls’ stockings hung by the fireplace to dry.
Although there is no certainty about how reindeer originally came to be associated with the holiday, it could be that their natural habitat in northernmost Europe and North America fits perfectly with the story of Santa’s secret North Pole workshop.
USPS informs that the stamp’s dedication ceremony would take place at Frankenmuth, a town connected with Christmas. It is the home of Bronner’s, the largest Christmas store globally, and is a Bavarian-rooted town with lots of holiday-related activities, USPS added.
The U.S. Postal Service is issuing Holiday Delights as a Forever stamp in booklets of 20. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.
Source: U.S. Postal Service
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 4:34 AM | Link to this Post
