Are the Latest Christmas Stamps the Last?

The United States Postal Service has announced their new Christmas stamps for 2026 are called Christmas Cookies and they will be publicly available starting on September 19th.

The new stamps feature four new and unique holiday images in Christmas cookie designs. It all celebrates a favorite holiday pastime: baking and decorating Christmas cookies. Featuring four sugar cookies, each with distinct decorations, the stamps were designed by Kyrie Johnson — who also baked the cookies — and Greg Breeding, a USPS art director. Here’s a look at them:

In addition, as per their usual Christmas routine, a new “traditional” Christmas image.

This year’s traditional Christmas stamp features “The Virgin and Child Enthroned,” a Netherlandish painting that dates from around the year 1500 and has been attributed to an artist known only as “The Master of the Embroidered Foliage.” Scholars believe this distinctive painting, with its large central figure of Mary in red garments and an array of background details, was created in a workshop by several artists and assistants, as was common practice at the time. This is what it looks like:

That annual Christmas stamp announcement is as traditional as stockings, eggnog and mistletoe.

But how much longer will they be able to make it?

The performance of the US Postal Service continues to raise eyebrows. Recently it was reported that the postal service lost $2.5 billion dollars in just the third quarter of this year and this was despite a revenue increase of more than $20 billion.

While the postal service has been bleeding cash for years it has recently become the subject of public speculation because service levels have diminished and sending even simple things like Christmas cards have become something of a concern.

We have for 22 years operated an online Christmas Card Exchange as part of the Christmas community here at My Merry Christmas. It is a cherished tradition. For regular senders and receivers of Christmas cards the concerns of what costs will be and just how long it will take to send a card around the world are genuine.

And we are not the only ones with these concerns.

Social media banter indicates that with the emergence of AI the practice of sending traditional (old fashioned?) Christmas greetings will further diminish due to rising costs and lack of arrival via traditional postal services.

Some speculate that the postal service just cannot afford to keep producing specialty items such as collectible Christmas stamps if simply because it isn’t profitable to do so.

The US postal service dates back to 1775 but surprisingly they have only produced Christmas stamps since 1962. Here is what was produced that first Christmas from the Post Office:

It’s not like this tradition is really that old. According to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum (who knew?) the post office produces one “traditional” stamp and a set of “contempory” stamps each year. The traditional seems to pursue historic art of a sacred nature while the contemporary stamps tend to focus on secular Christmas themes.

But AI is bleeding rapidly into nearly every part of our lives. Will a more modern method of exchanging Christmas greetings emerge as the post office embraces technologies in the name of reducing costs in human expenditure of labor and materials?

How would that work?

There are companies who right now will produce, stamp and send Christmas cards for you. Some businesses use them and have for decades. The process is so sophisticated that many claim to “hand write each card and address each envelope with a pen”. Could AI and bots do that better?

For the personal Christmas card sender that will never do.

Having participated in the My Merry Christmas Christmas Card Exchange since the beginning I can tell you the thrill of seeing those envelopes show up in the mail every December comes from knowing that each one has something creative and personal inside. Small items beyond the card are frequently included – confetti, bookmarks, recipes, pictures – all personal expressions between Internet strangers that brings us closer together.

That’s the stuff AI can never replicate and, frankly, until we die here at My Merry Christmas I don’t see how we send Christmas cards EVER changing.

Christmas stamps allow us just one more avenue to customize and personalize the cards we send. We certainly hope the USPS never stops putting them out.