USPS Releases Christmas Cookies Forever Stamps Featuring Santa, Tree, Stocking and Gift

The U.S. Postal Service is putting Christmas cookies on holiday mail this year with a new set of four Forever stamps based on decorated sugar cookies. The Christmas Cookies stamps were released September 19 during a ceremony at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., and are now available at Post Offices nationwide and through the USPS website.

Each design features a different frosted cookie against alternating red and blue backgrounds. The four cookies are shaped like a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, a wrapped present and a Christmas stocking. They are sold together in booklets of 20 Forever stamps.

The Christmas tree cookie is decorated with red ribbons, yellow stars and silver ornaments. Santa appears with a white beard, rosy cheeks and his familiar red cap, while the present design features a blue cookie wrapped with a red ribbon and decorated with holly. The fourth design is a red stocking decorated with light blue and green vertical stripes and white trim.

Unlike illustrated stamps that simply depict cookies, these designs started with actual baked goods. USPS art director Greg Breeding developed the booklet with cookie baker and decorator Kyrie Johnson, who baked and decorated the sugar cookies used for the issue. Sarah Cramer Shields photographed the finished creations.

There was even a little trouble getting the cookies from one part of the process to another. Breeding said some of the cookies shifted while being transported to Shields for photography, requiring minor flaws to be retouched before the finished images became stamps.

The booklet itself carries the Christmas Cookies theme beyond the individual stamps. Its cover shows the Christmas tree, Santa and stocking cookies against a blue background along with the words “Christmas Cookies” and “Twenty First-Class Forever Stamps.”

Christmas cookies have appeared on U.S. stamps before. USPS previously featured holiday cookies in its 2005 Holiday Cookies issue, and cookies appeared again as part of the 2017 Christmas Carols stamps. The Postal Service has been issuing contemporary Christmas stamp designs since 1962.

The latest issue draws on a holiday tradition that became increasingly common in the United States during the early 20th century. USPS notes that the practice of leaving cookies for Santa grew in popularity during the Great Depression, while cookie swaps eventually became another familiar part of holiday celebrations.

For stamp enthusiasts, USPS is also offering philatelic material tied to the release, including first-day-of-issue products commemorating the Washington, D.C., launch. The Christmas Cookies stamps are Forever stamps, meaning they remain valid for the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate even if postage prices increase in the future. They are available in booklets of 20 at Post Offices nationwide and through the Postal Service.