Sparkling Holidays Souvenir Stamps

In celebration of the holidays, USPS released a special 2018 Sparkling Holidays Souvenir Sheet and four new Forever stamps.

The sheet features a Haddon Sundblom painting, originally published in a 1963 Coca-Cola ad.  It’s an iconic scene of Santa visiting a home on Christmas Eve.  It includes one semi-jumbo version of one of the four special-sized stamps included in the Sparkling Holidays set.

In the painting, Santa stands at a fireplace with a book listing good boys and girls.  On the mantel, a note weighed down by a Coca-Cola bottle reads “Dear Santa Please Pause Here” signed “Jimmy.”

Below the image, reads “Sparkling Holidays” in a vintage style printed with gold metallic ink.  The flow of the type and the shape of the border resemble graphic styles used in the first half of the twentieth century.

The four stamps all feature paintings from Sunblom, which were all originally used in Coca-Cola ads from the 1940s through the early 1960s.