I have all the stamps I need but a radio call-in show is debating the fact that when people go to the PO to buy religious-theme Christmas stamps, they are told “We don’t have any”, not “They are all gone”. They are told that it’s a nationwide policy but that they could go on line to buy some. They do have the snowflake designs and the Muslim and Hanukka stamps, they say.
Is there some “policy” in effect or are they just “all sold out” at some POs?
I went to the Post Office today and they showed them to me when I asked for stamps. One for sure had a Madonna and child. I got the baseball players.
My husband works at the post office, and yesterday he brought home our holiday stamps. He got one sheet of snowflakes and one sheet of Madonna and child. As far as I am aware, these are the stamps available to the general public, as he actually waited until he clocked out and then stood in line at the front desk to buy them. Sounds like the radio call-in show has some bad information. (Either that or some PO somewhere has a regional policy that is being incorrectly misinterpreted as a national policy – this would surprise me, though.)
You can get Christmas stamps at the post office. The callers on that radio show probably encountered places that were out of them. There is no “nationwide policy” against them. Talk radio is not exactly a reliable source for information.
Was it Bill O’Reilly’s show? Media Matters debunkes his assertions here.
Here is another story that claims there has been a false internet rumor claiming that religious Christmas stamps have been discontinued (this page shows a picture of the Madonna/child stamp).
Isn’t that good news for the Christians? After all, the Madonna and Child stamps appear to be selling better than the others.
I buy my stamps online from usps.com. Madonna and Child was available last time I looked.
I am disappointed with this year’s holiday stamps in general. They just don’t wow me. Here’s hoping they’ll have jazzier ones next year.
Goodness, I can’t get anything but Christmas stamps at my Post Office! They offer me Madonnas and Children, Santa, Christmas trees, holly . . . When I ask for non-Christmas stamps, they give me a Look and offer me a menorah or “Happy Holidays.” When I ask for completely non-holiday stamps, I get an even Darker Look and crappy little flag stamps.
My town’s post office is relatively new and has the “store approach” to buying stamps. They are displayed shrink-wrapped on the wall and you choose one and then get in line to buy it. It tooks some getting used to but now people know what’s going on.
Yet bizarrely they don’t do that for the holiday stamps. Instead they have to put up a sign on the wall that says “holiday stamps at the counter”. How weird is that?
Eve, I’ve seen “Crops of the Americas” stamps (featuring chiles, corn, and other native crops) available in the stamp vending machines - though lately they’ve been displaced by the snowflake stamps; there are only so many slots in those machines for products. I’m surprised they don’t have anything more interesting at your local office.
You don’t say! I thought that if you heard it on talk radio or read it on the internet it had to be true. :smack:
Next you’ll be feeding me some crap like there is no Santa Claus.
They certainly are crappy, aren’t they? A real pain to use.
The design is unclear; it’s hard to tell at a glance which side goes up. And the little bit of printed text (“39 US”) is of little help – it’s small, not in a dark color, and blends in with the graphic.
This one is a really poor design. I hope they replace it soon!
Eve, I got some beautiful quilt stamps today. Did they not have any of those?
They definitely had Madonna and Child, as well as the snowflake and Hanuka ones. The snowflake ones were ok, but I didn’t want to be stuck using them in the summer.
No, it was a local radio call-in show in a medium-sized southern city.
Thanks for all the info. I may call in tonight and give them the straight dope.
I’m using the Madonna & Child stamps right now. I had to stand in line at the counter to buy them. The machine had the default flag stamps and the snowflake stamps (which do seem to have displaced the “Crops of the Americas” stamps in the machines for the time being.)
Either the caller or the Post Office employee gave bad information.
When I sent my office gofer to the post office for our holiday stamps, he had to call me and ask which one. Then he had to describe them all to me. I went with the snowflakes.
When he brought them to the office, he told me of the line that was forming behind him while we were debating stamps on his cell phone.
Yes, we’ve got Gee’s Bend ones, both holiday ones, and many other secular varieties. But it doesn’t surprise me that bigger towns would be sold out of holiday ones.
They usually have a great selection: I love the Wonders of America series. But they only have so much room, I guess, and this time of year it’s all given over to Christmas stamps (I live in a smallish, mostly Italian Catholic town).
t-bonham, I have the same trouble with those flag stamps! “Crap, I accidentally put it on upside-down–now the phone company will think I love them!”
It’s just a case of reading too much into a simple statement: if you are out of stock of anything, you often say, “we don’t have any.” Such a statement – probably how the clerk decided himself/herself to describe the situation and not anything he/she was told to say – has no ulterior meaning.
