The Postal Service evokes the holiday spirit with four new se-tenant stamps featuring a colorful digital illustration of elves preparing toys on a winding conveyor belt in a snow-laden forest. Like many beloved Christmas traditions—including Santa Claus himself—elves did not become a well-established part of the holidays in America until—the 19th century. In the 20th century, as elves became firmly rooted in American Christmas lore, they eventually became part of holiday television specials, films and books.

Santa’s home, North Pole, Alaska, is known for its year-round Christmas decorations, including candy cane–striped street lights. Streets have names like Kris Kringle Drive and Mistletoe Lane. The USPS has a Santa Letters program through which children’s letters from Santa are mailed with a North Pole postmark.

Don Clark was the artist and stamp designer. Antonio Alcalá was the art director.

This year’s Virgin and Child stamp features “Virgin and Child,” an oil-on-panel painting from the first half of the 16th century by a Florentine artist known as the Master of the Scandicci Lamentation. This painting is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Per Wikipedia, the artist, whose name is Francesco Granacci, was born in 1469 and was trained in Florence in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. His earliest works show the strong influence of Ghirlandaio as well as Filippino Lippi, who might have been Granacci’s first master. of particular interest, Granacci was a lifelong friends of Michelangelo and was among the artists who were asked to help Michelangelo with the Sistine chapel ceiling.

Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp.

Bringing to 24 the number of U.S. 2022 stamps devoted to floral themes, these stamps celebrate the warmth and cheer that flowers and berries bring to our natural landscapes, even after a surprise snow. In these hand-sketched and painted designs, the artist uses light, shadow and luminous color to evoke the beauty of 10 species: camellia, winter aconite, crocus, hellebore, winterberry, pansy, plum blossom, grape hyacinth, daffodil and ranunculus.

Derry Noyes designed the stamps with original oil paintings by Gregory Manchess.