Christmas Cheer for Sunday Stamps

Christmas 2012

In the dark of winter the Stable Lamp of the Finnish stamp shines out surrounded by snow. Brrr. Time to come indoors and admire the fully decked Christmas tree. Ever inventive this comes in a sheet of 20 with a special folds so it stands upright like a miniature Christmas tree, see it illustrated on Stamp Collecting Blog.
Both stamps designed by the Turku based Nina Rintala, her third set of stamps for Posti.

Travelling to the Åland Islands and the designer Minna Immonen says she was inspired by the sea but with a Christmas feel.   Is that little elf receiving or setting sail with the parcel?  My sender, Eeva, has sent the stamp with its gutter attached and those cute robins on the cracker.  They make another appearance on one of the this years Christmas seals (also designed by Minna Immonen)

Each year Åland choose a charity to benefit from the sale of seals and this year it is for children and families with cancer.

Eeva tells me that they have had a long and wet autumn but now the snow has arrived so why not join these two for a ski or perhaps a skate on the ice and then return home

hang up scarves, hat and skates and settle down for a hot drink. The Finns are one of the greatest coffee drinkers in the world.  I hope I'm getting a pastry which apparently they like to dip in their light roast coffee.  The cup and sugar bowl are from the 2011 Kaj Franck Centenary, pottery which can be found in almost every Finnish home.

 I will  finish with a stamp from a set featuring carols, songs that brighten up the darkness of winter but from a place where they sing them in the summer

2001: Christmas Carols (When Christ was born of Mary Free)

 The Susquehanne Chorale sing a pretty arrangement of of the carol featured on the stamp.

 Wishing you all a Merry Christmas

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