Ready for the Winter?

 

'A smurfy beginning is half the battle'

Sent by Melissa (the Netherlands).

'Happiness is when your soul
stops asking for it doesn't have
and starts enjoying the things it has'

Sent by Olga (Russia).

Sent by Phillip (the USA).

Hand Printed Christmas Cards

Card printed by Alan (the UK), from very old printing blocks.

Printed by Vicky (Spain).

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Reading Rabbits

This advent calendar arrived in January. So, I decided to keep them and use it on the following Christmas season -Now! The rabbit on the oversized chair is reading the most appropriate title: Christmas Story.

The postcard was sent by Phillip (the USA). The following day, curiously, another reading rabbit sent by Heleen (the Netherlands) reached my mailbox!

Story Time, by Racey Helps

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
December theme: SNOW

• Week 1 - Snow
• Week 2 - Animals in snow
• Week 3 - Keep warm
• Week 4 - Christmas

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Happy Winter Time

Christmas collage on an envelope sent by Laura (the UK).

And one of the first holidays postmarks from the USA:

Christmas Bears

Bears sent by Bryon (the USA), Heleen (the Netherlands), Phillip (the USA) and Bruno (PC), for 2023 & 2024 Christmas.

Vote for the 2024 Sepac Stamp of the Year

This year marks 25 years since the Small European Postal Administrations Co-operation (Sepac) network was founded. The twelve member countries of Sepac comprise the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Greenland, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, the Vatican and Åland. 

Since 2007, the Sepac countries have each issued a stamp in a joint series every other year, and every year since 2013. Sepac stamps are recognisable by the special Sepac logo, which is incorporated in the design of these stamps. The common theme changes from year to year. The theme of the 2024 Sepac stamp series is Main Tourist Attractions.

You can vote for the most beautiful 2024 Sepac stamp. By casting your vote, you will automatically be entered into our prize draw to win exclusive stamp collections from SEPAC members. Voting closes on 31st January 2025. You can vote here.

Sunday Stamps | Shaker Design

Today's theme in Sunday Stamps is The Colour Red. I know mine is not the most obvious choice but...

... two mostly red stamps belonging to the set Shaker Design, issued by USPS last June, to coincide with the 25oth anniversary of the arrival of the first Shakers to America.

This designs combine the simplicity and the utility. The 12-stamps feature photographs by Michael Freeman. On the stamps above:

• silk neckerchiefs from South Union Shaker Village (Auburn, Kentucky);
• the tannery at the Shaker Village of Mount Lebanon (New Lebanon, New York).

On the stamps above, from left to right: 

• a heater stove (Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield);
• a spinning wheel from Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, Massachussets);
• a rocking chair from Canterbury Shaker Village (Canterbury, New Hampshire).

From left to right: 

• cheese baskets in the dairy (Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield);
• the “swallowtail” joints of a bentwood box (Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield); 
• staircases in the Trustees’ Office and Guest House at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill (Harrodsburg, Kentucky).

(This post has been updated on 15 December 2024.)

Truly Dutch

Vase of tulips & Canal Houses

Cheese Board & Tea Service with a Boerenbont motif

Carrier Pigeon with a Letter & Whipped Cream Cake

Lighthouse

A herring

A caravan

Heleen (the Netherlands) has sent this beautiful stamps. Here you can read a bit more about them.

St Albans

St Albans cathedral. The oldest part on the postcard above, and, below, the Shrine of Saint Alban (1308; restored 1993), with the watching loft (15th century) on the background.

Postcards sent by Laura (the UK).

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Winter Animals

Card sent by Sandrine (France).

Illustration by Ag Jatkowska

Card sent by Phillip (the USA).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
December theme: SNOW

• Week 1 - Snow
• Week 2 - Animals in snow
• Week 3 - Keep warm
• Week 4 - Christmas

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

What Do You See Here?

 

This is a postcard from a restaurant, sent by Phillip (the USA). It seems a map to me.

Scaffolding

I have received many postcards showing the Canterbury Cathedral (and even visited it). But I was surprised to get this one, a view from the Christ Church Gate, with all that scaffolding. Could not they wait a bit to take the picture and issue the postcard? It is not like the building is going anywhere...

Drama

For those who enjoy a little postal drama & those who are expecting a reply from me: I have not received any piece of mail since November 6th.

Sunday Stamps | Stained-Glass Windows

On the day before yesterday's postcard, Canadian stamp issued on 3 November 1997. It shows a detail of St. Stephen Ukranian Catholic Church in Calgary. 

And more recent Canadian Christmas stamps, issued on 1st November 2011. They feature some motives from the windows of the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Kingston, Ontario

.

Stained-glass windows is a favourite theme for postcards and stamps. 

Go to Sunday Stamps to see more Glass stamps!

Letter to the Future City Librarian

«One very hot Saturday afternoon in April 1940, sitting alone in her office, Althea Warren* typed a letter addressed to "The City Librarian of Los Angeles on December 7, 1972" that she wanted opened by the future city librarian on what would be the hundredth anniversary of the library. She thought it would be interesting to leave a message, like a time capsule, for her sucessor. "You may be amused to know my troubles an hopes in your office thirty-two years ago," she began. "Thirty-two-year-old troubles are almost sure to be amusing." Warren mentioned that if by chance she were still alive when the letter was opened, she would be eighty-five years old, which at that time must have seemed nearly immortal. She wrote about how difficult it had been for her to inherit the library from the venerable Everett Perry, and how she felt like a "soft and shaking poplar tree" compared to Perry's "hard, primeval oak." She wrote about the contrast between the 1920s, when the library budget was lavish, and the cold shock of the stock market crash, when she was forced to cut salaries of library workers three times and could barely afford to order new books. The letter is by turns jolly and aching, full of the sober realization that because of her constrained budget, she was doomed to disappoint both her staff and the public. The public got less from the library that they wanted, and her staff was more aggrieved that she wished. She rued that she spent so much of her time on small matters—deciding whether to buy a new thermostat for the furnace in the San Pedro branch, finding money in the budget to buy paper towels for the washrooms—when what she hopes was to create a utopia of libraries across the city, staffed by librarians who were satisfied and proud.

  The letter was also optimistic. It was clear that Warren believed the library would endure. She signed off, "My heart is with your work and you!" The letter sat in the office of the city librarian until its designated date, when it was opened and read by Wyman Jones.»

Susan Orlean, The Library Book

*City librarian of the Los Angeles (California) Public Library from 1933 to 1947

Christmas Dinner at the Barn

The Animals Christmas Dinner, by Helen Van der Berg. Sent by Violet (Canada). With a lot of Christmas stamps on the back!

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Shrine in the Snow

The Benzaiten Shrine at Lake Inokashira in the Snow, from the series Places Famous for Snow, the Moon and Cherry Blossoms, mid 1830s-mid 1840s. Colour woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige, Japan (in the British Museum).

Card sent by Rosemary (Canada).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
December theme: SNOW

• Week 1 - Snow
• Week 2 - Animals in snow
• Week 3 - Keep warm
• Week 4 - Christmas

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Snow Globes

Hand made envelope made by Phillip (the USA). It was sent on 16 November 2023, and arrived on 29 December 2023, bearing the First Day of Issue Postmark. 

This is what USPS says about the stamps:

Christmas snow globes are miniature holiday celebrations. One shake and snow covers the scene. Your holiday mail can assure a small snowfall for everyone on your list.

I cannot but agree.

I got more of those stamps. The first one sent from... Rudolph (Ohio)!

December Stamps (2023)

Each year, PostNL issues new December stamps, (Decemberzegels) which can be used by everyone to send each other Christmas and New Year cards at a reduced rate. The illustrations for the 2023 December stamps were created by illustrator Linde Faas from Tromsø, Norway.

Heleen sent to me the complete series last year, on the back of different postcards --I uploaded to the blog only the first. 

More information about the December set here.