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  • 2015-11-17 (xsd:date)
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  • War on Christmas Stamps (en)
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  • In November 2015, a Facebook post claiming that the United States Postal Service would stop selling religious-themed Christmas stamps in 2016 started to go viral: Example: The above-quoted Facebook post echoed an article entitled Is the Postal Service Declaring War on Religion? published by The Daily Caller on 9 September 2015: The Daily Caller went on to blame a lack of new Christmas stamps on the Obama administration:The USPS postal stamps archive, however, shows that a Madonna stamp was released as recently as 2013; and religious Christmas stamps featuring Nativity scenes, Christmas Magi, and Madonnas by both Raphael and Sassoferrato were released in four (not two) of the last six years: The key issue here is the use of the word new. The USPS typically issues two sets of Christmas stamps every holiday season, one that is religiously themed and one that features secular Christmas and winter season symbols (e.g., snowmen, candy canes, Christmas trees). However, due to a large backlog of the former, the USPS is only issuing a new non-religious Christmas stamp set in 2015 (commemorating the 50th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas) and will be using stock left over from the previous year to service customers who wish to purchase religiously themed Christmas stamps. USPS spokesperson Mark Saunders directly addressed the claims made by the Daily Caller back in September 2015 by noting that the USPS didn't publish a new religious Christmas stamp design for the 2015 season because there were still more than a half billion religious-themed holiday stamps in stock: So, while the United States Postal Service opted to issue new Charlie Brown Christmas stamps in 2015 but not new religiously-themed postage stamps, several varieties of the latter will still be available for purchase by customers this year. (en)
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