3234 CHRISTMAS (Czech Republic) - Veselé Vánoce

"Veselé Vánoce a šťastný nový rok" means in Czech language "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!" For many Czechs, December 24 (Štědrý den) is the most enjoyable day of Christmas holidays. Its Czech name literally means "Generous Day", probably for the wealth of food that is traditionally served then. It is also Adam and Eve's name day. The Christmas tree is decorated with traditional ornaments in many households and preparations are made for the most festive dinner of the year.

3220 CHRISTMAS (United Kingdom) - Christmas tree

Royal Mail issued Christmas stamps for the first time in 1966, when it ran a competition on BBC's Blue Peter to select the design. Since then, the british postal service do so every year, and in 2016 were used traditional festive images including a snowman, a robin, a lantern, a Christmas tree, a pudding and a stocking. The six stamps issued on November 8, 2016, were crafted by Manchester-based artist Helen Musselwhite, using paper cut-outs, which were then photographed by Jonathan Beer. On this occasion, Royal Mail also issued postcards depicting this stamps.

2846, 3097 TANZANIA (Kilimanjaro) - Kilimanjaro National Park (UNESCO WHS)

3097 Mount Kilimanjaro (2)

Posted on 31.10.2016, 24.06.2017

Kilimanjaro National Park protects the largest free standing volcanic mass in the world and the highest mountain in Africa, rising 4877m above surrounding plains to 5895m at its peak. With its snow-capped peak, the Kilimanjaro is a superlative natural phenomenon, standing in isolation above the surrounding plains overlooking the savannah. It is composed of three volcanic cones: Kibo (5895m), Mawenzi (5,149m), and Shira (4,005m). Mawenzi and Shira are extinct, while Kibo is dormant and could erupt again.

2846 Mount Kilimanjaro (1)

The mountain has five main vegetation zones from the lowest to the highest point:  Lower slopes, montane forest, heath and moorland, alpine desert and summit. The whole mountain including the montane forest belt is very rich in species, in particular mammals, many of them endangered species. The mountain is drained by a network of rivers and streams, especially on the wetter and more heavily eroded southern side and especially above 1,200m. Below that altitude, increased evaporation and human water usage reduces the waterflows.

2912 CHRISTMAS (Finland) - Joulutonttu

Long time ago, in pagan times, tonttu lived in the houses and barns of the farmsteads, and secretly acted as their guardian. If were treated well, they protected the family and animals from evil and misfortune, and even were helping to the chores and farm work. They were no taller than 90cm, had a long white beard, and were dressed in the traditional farmer garb, consisting of a pull-over woolen tunic belted at the waist and knee breeches with stockings. On the head, they wore a conical or knit cap in red or some other bright color.

2822 A inuit girl with a baby seal

Not only I don't know what to say about this postcard more than I said in the title, but I have no idea what tag to assigned it. The postcard was printed in Russia, has stamps from the United States (because it's a surprise from a friend who lives there) and was sent from Antarctica, from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. I don't know neither who is the author of the drawing (Anna Lavrentieva?). In addition, it bears the slogan "Save the Arctic". In conclusion, I placed it at the theme Christmas postcards.

2208 CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR (Russia) - Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, by Marie-Anne Foucart

Born in Saint-Étienne, a city in eastern central France, at 50km southwest of Lyon, Marie-Anne Foucart graduated Fine Arts in 2004. She settled in 2005 as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer and opened, in association with other artists, a workshop / shop in the heart of Lyon. Today she make illustrations for publishing, including Editions des Correspondances, and occasionally participates in group or individual exhibitions.

2117 CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR (Romania) - Holidays are coming!

Nothing to say, nothing to do: another year has passed! Perhaps the coming year will be more beautiful..

1527 CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR (Ukraine) - Under the Christmas tree, on Easter

1376 AUSTRALIA (Victoria) - Virgin and Child in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne

On October 31, 2014 Australia Post has issued, as in every year, a series of stamps and also a set of maxicards to celebrate Christmas. The set contains five stamps, divided into two distinct categories, in fact two themes. Four of the stamps, festive and colourful, represent the familiar trappings and sentiments of Christmas celebration and recall techniques of paper cut design as well as snow crystals. The other two have a religious theme, being based on stained-glass windows in Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne.

1375 ROMANIA - Pluguşorul

In Romania, Christmas and mid-winter celebrations last from 20th December (Saint Ignatius's Day, when is sacrificed the pig, its meat being used in the Christmas meal) to 7th January (Saint John's Day). This period is very important in Romania, as in all the Christian  countries, but not few traditions are much older, prior the Christianization. One of these is Pluguşorul (which literally means "little plough" in Romanian), an ancient agrarian carol, with theatrical elements. Traditionally, in New Year's Eve, or in some regions even in New Year's Day, a band composed of two to twenty boys and men recently married, headed by a vătaf (bailiff), went from house to house to sing good wishes. A plow pulled by oxen, decorated with colored paper, ribbons, flowers, on which was put a fir tree, was a customary presence within this carol.

0933 NEW YEAR (Russia) - Russian dancer

This wonderful work of Lia Selina, a digital artist and illustrator from Russia, isn't really a New Year postcard, but could be one. It depict a girl dressed in a traditional russian costume, with a sarafan long to the ankles, a shirt with large sleeves, tight to wrists, and a richly decorated kokoshnik.

0903 CHRISTMAS (Australia) - Baubles

The custom of the Christmas tree developed in modern Germany (with predecessors that can be traced to the 16th century), from where it spread to Europe in the 19th century, and after WWI in many other countries worldwide. It's frequently traced to the symbolism of evergreen trees in pre-Christian winter rites. The tree was traditionally decorated with edibles such as apples (symbolizing the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil), nuts, and later candies, and in the 18th century it began to be illuminated by candles, now replaced by Christmas lights. In the modern era apples and nuts were replaced by baubles, small hollow glass or plastic spheres coated with a thin metallic layer to make them reflective.

0902 CHRISTMAS (Luxembourg) - Frohe Weihnachten

Frohe Weihnachten means "Merry Christmas" in German, but I believe that also in Luxembourgish, two of the three administrative languages of Luxembourg (the third is French). The vivid and bright colors delight the eye and gladden the soul, and the onion-shaped domes and the ogee arches leads my mind to the stories of One Thousand and One Nights.

0465 NEW YEAR (Russia) - A postcard from 1910 (reissued)

As soon as I saw this postcard I was convinced that belongs to the Soviet period. Two were the arguments. The first was that on it write "Happy New Year", which means it is a postcard for the New Year, a feast completely eclipsed by the Christmas in Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution. The second was the heroic attitude of the boy (ready for action, with chin high, the neck rigid and the chest bulging), which I always considered a Soviet attitude, not a Russian one.

0392 CHRISTMAS (Netherlands) - Madonna and Child..., by Francesco Francia

Behold the second Christmas postcard that I received it this year and in my life. My good friend Wilma from the Netherlands, with whom I think I have telepathic links or maybe we were brothers in a past life, probably read what I wrote on the blog about the first postcard received, and she said in her mind: "Poor Little Dănuţ, nobody send him Christmas postcards" I'm kidding, of course. Dank je wel, Wilma!

0387 CHRISTMAS (Australia) - Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus

Here's the first Christmas postcard that I received it. No, not the first of this year, but the first that I have ever received. In addition, isn't a common one, but a gorgeous maxicard, which is part of a series of two, issued by Australia Post on October 31, 2011. Both features themes from the Biblical Christmas story: the Virgin Mary adoring the newborn baby Jesus (0.55 AUD - this one), and the three Kings (Wise Men; Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar) traveling from the East to Bethlehem to worship the Christ Child (1.50 AUD).

0393 CHRISTMAS (United States) - Children Reading (A Merry Christmas)

Even though I know that they are pathetic, because it addresses of a kind of sensibility extinct long time ago, this kind of postcards from the early 20th century wake up in me a sort of strange nostalgia, the regret for something that I never had. Sounds strange, but I met this feeling to other people too, even to some much younger than me. I think that is the regret that we lost a certain innocence that reigned the souls of the ordinary people and governed the relations between they until after WWII. The fact that in recent years have begun to circulate an increasing number of reproductions of such postcards is encouraging, and the truth is that those who print them have numerous choices. Only Ellen H. Clapsaddle, who signs also this postcard, left behind over 3,000 postcards.