Florentine Madonna and Child Christmas Forever Stamps

A detail from a tempera-on-panel painting of the Madonna and Child, dated to around 1470 and held in the Widener Collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Mary, in a white veil and a red garment trimmed with gold under a blue cloak, looks down at the Christ Child with her hand on his shoulder; behind them is a hedge of pink and white roses with sky showing through the stalks. The painter is anonymous, catalogued only as a follower of Fra Filippo Lippi and Pesellino. William J. Gicker was the art director. Booklets of 20.

The Postal Service issues a religious Christmas stamp most years alongside the secular ones, and this is what churches, parishes and religious schools buy for their December mail. Families who prefer a nativity to a snowman use them for cards. If a book is left over, the value does not expire - Forever means one ounce of first-class mail at the current 82¢ rate, in December or any other month.