Using holiday stamps to send season’s greetings may seem like a centuries-old tradition, but it’s really a relatively recent phenomenon.
The first-ever Christmas “stamp” was a nonpostage seal, an idea developed in 1904 by a postal clerk in Denmark to sell seals to raise funds to help children with tuberculosis.
That idea was picked up across the pond in 1907 by an American Red Cross volunteer who sought to fund a tuberculosis sanitorium in Delaware by selling seals. The success of that effort led the Red Cross to go nationwide with Christmas seals the next year.
The burgeoning popularity of the seals sparked widespread interest in a holiday-themed postage stamp, but despite repeated requests over the years, the Post Office Department resisted, believing the costs of a seasonal stamp would outweigh the benefits.
In the words of then-Postmaster General J. Edward Day, the department finally relented “in response to heavy public demand.” On Nov. 1, 1962, a stamp depicting a wreath flanked by two glowing tapers was released at the annual convention of the National Association of Postmasters in Pittsburgh.
The initial order of 500 million stamps — the most ever printed for a special issue — quickly sold out, and by the end of the year, 862 million had sold, setting a sales record.
The success of the 1962 Christmas stamp meant a new annual postal tradition was born.
In 1970, the organization began the practice of issuing both a “traditional” stamp, with overtly religious themes, and a “contemporary” one, with secular imagery.
In the 1990s, the Postal Service expanded the traditions covered in the holiday stamp program. The first Lunar New Year stamp was issued in 1992, and in 1996, the first Hanukkah stamp — launching the organization’s Holiday Celebrations series — was released. The series has also celebrated Kwanzaa, Eid Mubarak and Diwali.
