I’ve been posting stamps on here almost every day since 24 March. As I’ve riffled through the Trusty Book of Stamps each day, I’ve deliberately ignored all the Christmas stamps. Now it feels like time to see if I can create a little Christmas Advent calendar for you all. I don’t know if I’ll manage 25 different countries, but let’s see how we go…
Let’s start the month with this from the USA in 1963. This one gets points from me for design; it has an elegance and simplicity to it, as well as some incredible texturing if you zoom in on the sky. This was in fact only the second year of Christmas stamps in the US. This one was designed by Lily Spandorf with adjustments by Norman Todhunte and it came out on 1 November 1963.
Three weeks later, the President of the United States was assassinated.
Looking at this stamp, I did wonder if it was release before or after the Kennedy assassination. The stamp seems to capture something respectful and quiet, something about hope, but also – in its lack of people – something about loneliness and perhaps loss. All this really says is that it’s easy to read things into a design when you have the benefit of hindsight.
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/christmas-holiday-stamps.htm
Stamp of the Day 