It’s just pumpkin spice season and sweater season hasn’t arrived yet, but the U.S. Postal Service is making sure those looking forward to sending holiday cards are taken care of by issuing the 2024 Forever Holiday Joy stamps.

The Holiday Joy collection is the result of a collaboration between Antonio Alcalá, an art director in the USPS stamp development program, and a West Coast artist, Michelle Muñoz.

Alcalá spoke to WTOP from his studio in Northern Virginia.

The stamp set includes two with ornaments, one with a poinsettia and another with floral elements that he says are “reminiscent of a snowflake.”

Designing artwork for a small canvas – the size of a first-class postage stamp – can be tricky. He said one of the designs he and Muñoz had been working on had to be put on hold because “it looked more like a honeybee with wings than an ornament, so we had to start over and rework that particular design.”

Alcalá said he enjoys seeing his own stamps on cards and letters, and he likes to select stamps for his own correspondence, choosing a stamp that he thinks might have special meaning for the recipient. It’s still hard to comprehend that his designs are available not only at his local post office in Northern Virginia, but “all over the country from Maine to Florida to Alaska to California. It’s just an incredible feeling.”

The volume of mail handled by the U.S. Postal Service has shrunk: “It’s no secret that the amount of first-class mail has declined in proportion to the increase in the number of emails finding their way into your inbox,” he said.

However, Alcalá said that the stamps would be produced in an edition of at least 10 million.

“I know that if we issue a stamp, millions of people across the country will continue to use it for their mail,” Alcalá said.

Alcalá also noted what he called a “revival” of correspondence through the USPS, especially among younger letter writers.

“It is a very personal and emotional thing when a piece of mail from a loved one, a friend or a relative is pushed through the mail slot or into the mailbox,” he said.

Along with the Holiday Joy collection of Forever stamps, a new stamp entitled “Madonna and Child” will be issued.

A special dedication ceremony will be held Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, 2 Massachusetts Avenue NE.

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