Trees

 The theme for this week's Sunday Stamps is trees.

The Christmas tree is still up (probably going to come down at Candlemas), so here's one of last years Snow Globe stamps with a Christmas tree inside, a bit obscured by the postmark, which festively has a matching tree inside a snow globe.

And just in from Fabienne, this lovely stamp celebrating the tenth anniversary of France's Patronage Law, which concerns philanthropy, and philanthropic organizations and associations.

For more links to trees on stamps check out the links at See it on a Postcard.

Whenever I was doing nothing

 A very interesting postcard received from Yuziye via Postcrossing sharing a Chinese saying, "Eat and wait for death." Glad my parents didn't know Chinese, I would probably have been on the receiving end of this saying a few times!!

This is my first time linking up for Thursday Postcard Hunt - this week's theme is inspirational thoughts/funny sayings.

Explore more postcards with this theme by visiting See it on a Postcard.

José de Sousa Saramago

 The theme for today's Sunday Stamps is writers, and fortuitously a letter from Eva arrived yesterday with a stamp celebrating the centenary of the birth of José de Sousa Saramago (1923-2010), who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1998.

José Saramago was a Portugese writer who left Portugal in 1992 after the government ordered one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, be removed from being considered for the Aristeion Prize.

He then lived in exile in Lanzeroti (The Canary Islands, Spain) until his death.

You can read more about the stamp from Correos here. A link to his English wikipedia page is here.

Have you read any of his work? If so, do you have a recommendation for which one to start with?

For more links to stamps on writers, visit SeeItOnAPostcard.

Postage rates go up tomorrow

 It's that time of year - USPS rates increase tomorrow, so if you want to save money today's your last day to buy stamps at the current rate. If you use the largest seller of stamps in the US, the USPS online shop, you only have until 11pm eastern as they'll be performing upgrades to the system.

Rate changes:

First class forever stamp - up 2c to 68c

Postcards within the US - up 2 c to 53c

International postcards and letters up to 1 oz - up 5c to $1.55

Dear Eduardo

 Do you remember the 'Who is Eduardo Munez?' project?

Did you send in an envelope?

You can watch this short film titled 'Dear Eduardo' for free on youtube now!

De Hef Railway Bridge

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is bridges.

Heleen sent me this stamp featuring De Hef railway bridge in Rotterdam. Built in 1927, De Hef means 'the lift', and its official name is Koningshaven Bridge. There were plans to demolish the bridge in 1993, however the protest against it by local residents was heeded. The bridge gained international notoriety in 2022 when there was a proposal to dismantle it to allow Jeff Bezos' (billionaire owner of Amazon) yacht to reach open water via the Koningshaven channel. Protests once again won the day, and the bridge was untouched.

This stamp was issued in 2014 as part of a series that celebrated 175 years of Dutch railways.

For more links to bridges on stamps, check out the links at SeeItOnAPostcard.

Sunday stamps - places of worship

 For today's theme, I am sharing a single stamp from France thanks to Fafa.

The church, Église Saint-Pierre (St Peter's church) in Riga, Latvia with snow. Construction began in 1209, and you can access the Wikipedia page for more information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Church,_Riga

Go to Sunday Stamps for more links on today's theme. https://seeitonapostcard.blogspot.com

Lucky Lemonpig

 I hope that Momo the lemon pig will bring good fortune this year to all our postal endeavors.

Happy New Year!

 Welcome to 2024! 

This beautiful card is from CJ (check her blog out) - thank you! A pair of cardinals usually nests in or adjacent to the back yard, so these are special birds to me. I hope they bring us all the best of luck in the coming year.