Christmas Time

1999: Pingu

The last posting day for Christmas has passed, time for little Pingu to take a rest and get ready to open his own presents under the Christmas Tree. Does a tree fit into an igloo?

1986: Christmas (Design - Margaret Halcrow-Cross}

And how does one wrap "a partridge in a pear tree"?  The counting song 12 days of Christmas is a popular subject for stamps and New Zealand Post issued three stamps each showing one of the first three gifts sent by "my true love"

2017: Christmas (Design - Catherine Rowe)

The Isle of Man went a step further and issued all 12 days in a set this year, easy to sing along with these in front of you. I show the partridge in the pear tree because I think it is so interesting to see how different artists interpret the same subject.

1992: Christmas (Design - Frances Poskitt)

A beautiful starry night in Ireland unfortunately not one we are going to have here this year in these islands. Its been unremitting gloom - mist and rain - for ages, we are promised sunshine on Wednesday!  The artist is Frances Poskitt, best known for her botanical paintings so you get a lovely holly bush on the stamp. We have been to church through stamps so it is now time to sit down for Christmas dinner

1982: Christmas (Design - Lynette Hemmant)

the party hats are on so the crackers have been pulled

2011: Christmas (Illustrator Andrew Hopgood/Design Jennifer Scalzo)

and Santa Claus is enjoying the day off on Christmas Island.  I wonder what he is going to eat?

2017: Christmas (Gingerbread Houses)

It would be a shame to cut into this little Gingerbread House. The gingerbread makers name appears on each of this two stamp set and this one is a gingerbread farmhouse by Miceal de Haas (story here).

Åland Post wished me a Merry Christmas with this Maximum Card. What a perfect Christmas greeting.  It looks an idyllic place to spend the holidays. 

 Sunday Stamps II is celebrating Christmas on stamps - See It On A Postcard 

Wishing you all A Very Merry Christmas

     

Island In The Sun

I only have three Christmas Island stamps and happily they fit this week's Sunday Stamps perfectly. The first features a Robber Crab doing what its name suggests and going for that Christmas parcel. Are those its gleeful offspring?  Robber Crabs are the largest species of land crab in the world, so no arguing over that present.

Next, my favourite, a Frigatebird puffing up its pouch and its friend the starfish, although in real life I suspect the latter may be a tasty snack.  There are five types of Frigatebird and the Christmas Island species is the rarest. Some of its breeding colonies were polluted some decades ago by phosphate mining but today it faces a smaller but deadlier threat. The accidental introduction of the yellow crazy ant which is killing the island's native red crab, a major food source for the bird.

 Lastly the Golden Bosunbird, unique to Christmas Island,  sits on a flowery parcel.  Christmas Island is home to a large number of seabirds and despite being the peak of an underwater mountain it is large enough to have developed its own ecosystem.

All the stamps were designed by Rob Kiely.  This year the post have gone with a different designer and a Father Christmas theme, although our friend the Frigatebird still puts in an appearance see here.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamps theme of Christmas or Holiday Stamps