Christmas Stamps: St. Nick in 2021


Every Christmas, children all around the world dream of a visit from St. Nick. The USPS celebrates that highly anticipated event with four new stamps telling the story of St. Nick’s visit on Christmas Eve. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamps with original art by Brad Woodard.

 

In 1823, the anonymous publication of the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” perhaps better known as “The Night before Christmas,” helped to shape much of our modern mythology of the holiday. St. Nicholas’s sleigh is pulled by eight flying reindeer, each of them carefully called by name. Dressed in fur, with twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, and dimples, St. Nick visits each home to fill children’s stockings with presents. He is described as a merry, plump elf — very different from the original rather somber bishop.

 

Santa on a Snowy Rooftop
In the first stamp, Santa stands on a snowy rooftop, sack slung across his back, with one leg inside the red-brick chimney. St. Nick — Santa Claus — is one of our most recognized and beloved cultural icons, his jolly laugh and smiling eyes a happy reminder that the holidays are near.

 

Winking Santa
The second stamp is a close-up of a winking Santa. Twentieth-century artists based their illustrations of Santa Claus on some of Nast’s images, as well as on the description in the poem “The Night Before Christmas.” Their portrayals of a rosy-cheeked, smiling, grandfatherly man in his red, fur-trimmed suit seemed to embody the very essence of “Santa.” A visit from St. Nick brings joy to the kid in all of us.


Santa and His Reindeer
The third stamp shows Santa and some of his reindeer as they travel on to their next stop. In an 1809 satire, American author Washington Irving described a dream in which St. Nick traveled in a flying wagon. A few years later, in 1821, the illustrations accompanying the poem “The Children’s Friend” further embellished the legend with “Santeclaus” arriving in a sleigh drawn by a reindeer.


Santa Comes Down the Chimney
The fourth stamp shows Santa as he descends through the chimney, his legs dangling over the hearth. European immigrants brought to their new country folk characters that over the years became our present-day Santa Claus. One of those characters was Sinterklaas, who delivered presents on the eve of the feast day of St. Nicholas of Myra, a third-century bishop.