Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Christmas Postmarks

Christmas is rapidly approaching, which means we've all been frantically trying to get our family pictures taken and our Christmas cards out before Dec. 25th!! It seems to sneak up too fast every year.

One of the fun things I've done to my Christmas cards in years past is to send them to Noel, MO for a special holiday postmark.


This is an easy way to add a little detail to your cards when you send them. All you have to do is address and stamp (very important!) each card. Then you package them all together in a tear-proof manila size envelope (you can get these at the post office) addressed like this:


Postmaster

Noel, MO 64854


I think it cost me around $7.00 last year to send my envelope of 75 cards to Noel for the postmark. Not terribly expensive!

For a listing of all the 'holiday towns' in the United States and their zip codes, you can go to this website. Now that I know of other places with great postmarks, I'll try a new one this year.

I know that the town of Bethlehem, MD does a postmark that has the Three Wise Men walking towards a star (see below), but the town is too tiny to keep up with the huge influx of mail that comes in at Christmas time. So the only way you can get that postmark is by physically taking your cards to the town and hand stamping them yourselves. Which, if I lived anywhere near that side of the country, I would do it in a heartbeat! So cute!



My tip: A good way to see what the postmark looks like on your envelope, and to know when others are 'receiving' your cards, is to address one back to yourself.

This also adds a fun touch to your scrapbooks if you included the envelope (that you addressed back to yourself with the great postmark) along with your family Christmas picture on your scrapbook page.

5 comments:

  1. What a fun idea! I don't think we have anything like that here :(

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  2. I am going to try Frost, MN. this year and see how their postmark looks.

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  3. Thanks for the story; wanted to point out that what you will receive from Noel is a "cachet". I have posted this in a couple of other forums. Back in the old days, Noel used to run the mail through a machine and all your mail actually received both a decorative rubber stamp as shown on the site, either in green or red PLUS a postmark which said "Noel, MO 64854". Nowadays all you get is just the decorative marking, which is fine, mind you, but you will not get a POSTMARK unless you specifically ask for it. Your mail will likely receive a jetspray marking from Springfield MO, the sectional center for 648 zip codes. I am a stamp collector, as you might have surmised, and I just wanted to make sure people understood the distinction. For me, getting the town name and such in the postmark was part of the appeal. I guess things have just got so busy nowadays, that they don't think the postmark itself is really that important, and that most people don't even understand the difference.

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  4. When we lived in North Pole, AK; our middle school would respond to letters sent to Santa. We got to be his elves. I think they still do the postmark thing. I did go to Bethlehem, MD when we lived in VA. Very very cool!

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