Thank you Santa

I joined a Secret Santa game on a forum this year. I really liked it to buy presents for someone I actually don’t know. It feels like a true Christmas spirit!


And this package arrived last week:

I really like my presents! Did you ever joined an online Secret Santa?

Joy to the world, the Lord has come!

Zalig Kerstfeest iedereen! Merry Christmas everyone!
Frohe Weihnachten allen!
Feliz Navidad a todos!
大家圣诞快乐！
С Рождеством всех!


(I have sent this card to Olya in Ukraïne with Postcrossing)

All I want for Christmas

I love almost everything that has something to do with Christmas and, ofcourse, especially Christmas cards. My Mom bought me those lovely cards with angels. I like them being ‘old’ and classic. I prefer cards like this more than cards with crazy Santa’s or photo cards from families with ugly Christmas hats.

I got my first Christmas card today. It's from my Grandma and I'll show it soon :)

December Stamps

We have special December stamps since 1987. They are special stamps which you can use for sending Christmas cards in the Netherlands. They are a little bit cheaper than normal stamps and have a special Christmas look. The stamps have a 72-hour delivery.


This year’s December stamps:
 

Stamps from 2010:


December stamps from 2007 and 1994:
 

Do you have special stamps for Christmas?

♥ Old-fashioned but still beloved ♥

Kerstkaartje per post nog steeds geliefd Negen op tien Nederlanders stuurt nog steeds fysieke kerstkaarten naar vrienden en familie • Digitaal niet erg populair

Een krabbeltje op Hyves, een tweet, het muurberichtje op Facebook; er zijn mogelijkheden te over om je naasten een digitale kerstgroet te brengen. Toch stuurt negen op de tien Nederlanders nog altijd een fysieke kerstkaart naar vrienden en familie. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van online wenskaartenservice Greetz.nl onder ruim 550 Nederlanders.

En het mag dan crisistijd zijn, bezuinigen op de kerstkaart doen we allerminst: veertig procent van de ondervraagden stuurt meer dan 30 exemplaren uit. Een op de tien Nederlanders doet zelfs meer dan 50 kaarten de deur uit. Hoe kan het dat deze sociale traditie, ondanks het digitale tijdperk, zo rotsvast blijkt? “De behoefte aan een tastbare kaart verdwijnt eigenlijk nooit”, zegt directeur Johan van Vulpen van Greetz.nl . “Zo’n lint aan de deur met allemaal kaarten eraan staat niet alleen warm en gezellig, het geeft mensen het gevoel dat anderen aan ze denken. En misschien sturen we ze ook omdat we stiekem hopen op een kaartje terug.”

Opvallend genoeg zijn het vooral vrouwen die zich bezighouden met kerstkaarten: een op de tien spendeert meerdere dagen aan het maken en verzenden ervan, dat is drie keer zo veel als mannen. En wie denkt dat kerstkaarten versturen iets oubolligs heeft, zit er volledig naast, zegt Van Vulpen. “Aan de hippe ontwerpen die worden gekozen en gemaakt op onze website zien we dat juist veel jongeren kerstkaarten versturen.”

Greetz.nl vroeg de kaartstuurders ook wie dit jaar een warme kerstgroet verdient. Op nummer een? De spelers van het Nederlandse honkbalteam, gevolgd door Johnny Hoogerland. Op de derde plaats Mark Rutte: die heeft het namelijk zo zwaar met de eurocrisis.



Uit: Metro

Just Love...

Here are a few of my favorite postcards I got from Postcrossingmembers

So, as you can see, I like vintage and cute cards. I got the card with The Mistery Of The Brass Bound Trunk from an old woman from Canada. She told me that it's the cover of a book she read more than 50 years ago. How cool?!

What kind of cards do you like?

Christmas Wish Project

It was the first Sunday of the advent period last Sunday. And for me, a real Christmas lover, the day I can start with all the nice Christmas things. One of the  traditions is to send Christmas cards to wish ‘A merry Christmas and a happy new year!’. Of course I’m gonna send lots of cards to my family, friends, neighbours and colleagues.  But, this year I want to do more. So I’ll start a little project to send cards to people or organisations which can use a little bit extra attention.  So, do you know someone who does lots of volunteer work, someone who had a very hard year or something like that? Let me know it! If you  give me the address and the reason why they deserve an extra Christmas card, I’ll send a special Christmas wish.

Birthday Post

Today I’ll show you all the postcards I got for my birthday 1,5 week ago. I got cards from my family, friends and also from Marlous and an early card from Elina, Postcrossing.

(I think my postman has problems with his back now.)

Postman Pat

It seems that I have my love for post a very long time already. One of my favourite programmes when I was little was Postman Pat, or Pieter Post in Dutch. It is a British stop-motion animated children’s television series. It started in 1981 on BBC and there are 141 episodes now. The series has been broadcasted in very much countries, so lots of people must have been grown up with Postman Pat.


But for those of you who don't know it, Pat Clifton is a friendly country postman who delivers letters in the town of Greendale... He is a good postman but he always have some trouble when he gets distracted by something going on the village. He has a bright red van, and a black and white cat named Jess. (Jess is the name in the original version. Most of the characters have other names in the different language versions)

The original version:

Here some names as you might know it:
The Scottish Pàdraig Post, in Gaelic
New Zealand has plans to broadcast in Maori (they already have the English version)
In Catalonia they have Pat el carter, in Catalan
The Italian version is called Il postino Pat
In Israel they call it Pat-e Postchi which is Hebrew
Pat-e Postchi is Persian and broadcasted in Iran
In Austria and Germany they have Postbote Pat, in German
The Arabic version is called ساعي البريد

Pieter Post (Dutch)
Japenese
  

Last Monday, I received this letter from Marlous. She wrote a big letter and had put lots of nice things in it. Two little envelopes with old stamps in it, air mail stickers, a birthday card and a beautiful spell. It felt like a Birthday gift. 

The stationery that she has used:

The Birthday card

Thank you so much, Marlous! I think your Letter Writing Project is wonderful!

A photo from Taiwan

Ellie sent me this beautiful card last Saturday. She made the photo on the card herself. I think it is wonderful.

Thank you Ellie!

How bad is that?! It’s only mid-November and they already have blown up the mailbox with fireworks! Last week I heard a very loud bang and our whole house was shaking. I didn’t know what happened until the next morning…


It was my favourite mailbox. It was just two minutes work to post a letter. Now I have to take my bike to go to the centre of my town to post something.

Why would somebody do this? Is it fun? Or just boredom? I don’t get it. So please, annoying schoolboys, blow up your scooter or something! Just STOP with this vandalism.

It has arrived!

My first letter writing project letter has arrived! As I said a few blog posts ago, I have sent a letter to Marlous. Here some pictures I made:

And here some pictures which Marlous made:

I think it was really fun to do, so this won’t be my last letter. When I get a letter from Marlous I’ll show you.

Happy Birthday Olya!

I always like it when I can send a birthday card. So I was really happy when I got the adress and saw that Olya's birthday is on 12 November.
This is the card I sent:

I used a special Postcrossingstamp from PostNL as birthdag gift. And this song is for you, Olya. It's a Dutch birthdaysong.

Поздравляю!
(Congratulations!)

Letter writing project

On the Dutch ellegirl forum, I saw a linkt to marlous’ blog, A flood of Memories. She has a ‘letter writing project’. You can ask for her address and send her a letter. Every letter she gets or sends will be posted on her blog. I think it’s an awesome idea. It’s funny that I found her blog on the day I decided to start my own mail-related blog. I asked her address and I’ll send her a letter this week. Ofcourse I’m gonna show it on this blog.

You can find her blog Here
She also has a webshop where she sells selfmade stationery, from envelopes to complete sets. You can find her webshop Here

PostNL Postcrossing stamps

Yes, you read that right! On October 14th, PostNL will launch a real stamp, featuring Postcrossing! How awesome is that?

For us, it's a huge honour that the project was deemed worthy of being featured in a stamp, and we're very grateful to PostNL (the Dutch postal service) for making this dream come true. We'd also like to thank postcrosser Raymond68 - the Postcrossing stamp exists because of his efforts and persistence.

The stamp was designed by Garech and Declan Stone, and features all kinds of traditional postcards strewn about, as if scattered on your doormat. Here is what the stamp sheet looks like:

Neat, right? There are several different stamps, both for Europe and the rest of the world, featuring the traditional postcard motives.

The first stamps will be delivered to Paulo on October 15th, during the Postex event in Apeldoorn. Postex is an annual event for philatelic collectors, featuring celebrating associations, youth philately, traders from home and abroad, foreign postal administration(s), Day of the Stamp, exhibitions and much more.

From: http://www.postcrossing.com/

Just a card from Leiden

When I had to wait 30 minutes at the trainstation in Leiden, because I missed my train, I took a look at the postcardcabinet in the HEMA. There I found this card. It's very simple, but it says exactly what it has to say:

Geen e-mail,     No email,
Geen voicemail,     No voicemail,
Geen sms,     No sms,
Of een msn,     Or a msn,
Maar gewoon een kaart uit Leiden!     Just a card from Leiden

I decided to buy it and sent it to my best friend. We don't see eachother very often because we live and study in different citiess. Let's hope she likes my card!

Happy Birthday from Finland

I recieved my first birthday card of this year on 29 October 2011 from Elina, Finland.
The cake on the front looks delicious! I would almost take a bite of it XD

Dear Elina, I hope winter will be there soon so you and your Husky-dogs can enjoy the snow!
Kiitos kortista.

(Thank you for your card)

Gold fever in California

This card comes from Darlene, the San Fransisco Bay Area.

The information on the back:
HIGHWAY 49 - THE GOLDEN CHAIN HIGHWAY
CALIFORNIA'S HISTORIC GOLD COUNTRY
In 1848 only a few hundred settlers lived on the foothills of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Then gold was discovered and whitin a year 90,000 '49ers had appeared. Highway 49, the Golden Chain Highway, takes you through California's Historic Gold Country as it follows the 300 mile-long area enriched by a giant vein of gold called the Mother Lode.

I hope you had a nice Halloween, Darlene!

Kon ni chi wa from Japan

I got this lovely card from Saki on 19 August 2011. It's one of my favorites because it is so cute and I love the bright colors.  I'm wondering if she has colored itself.

The card says:
'This is a magic leaf! What will we turn into?
What about twin elephants!?
I will be pink and you will be skyblue, OK?
Oh, this is fun!!'

あなたに感謝
Anata ni kansha
(Thank you)