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WASHINGTON — With the holidays nearing, the post office has five new Christmas stamps and the usual array of postage for other holidays available.
Each year, the U.S. Postal Service issues what it calls a traditional stamp featuring a Madonna for Christmas, as well as four nonreligious stamps that it says are for the winter holidays.
This year there is a 44-cent Madonna and Sleeping Child, based on a painting by the 17th-century Italian artist Giovanni Battista Salvi, commonly known as Sassoferrato. The painting is currently in the collection of Hearst Castle in California. Madonna stamps have been issued annually since 1978.
The secular winter holiday stamps feature a reindeer, snowman, gingerbread man and toy soldier.
