Illinois 2 Zip Codes (604-605, 609, 612-620, 622-629) — Every Christmas, children all around the world dream of a visit from St. Nick. The U.S. Postal Service celebrates that highly anticipated event with four new stamps telling the story of St. Nick’s visit on Christmas Eve.

There are four stamps that tell the story of Santa’s visit on Christmas Eve. The first stamp has Santa about to climb into a rooftop chimney, with the second showing his feet dangling over the fireplace hearth as he descends. A winking Santa graces the third stamp, while the fourth shows Santa and some of his reindeer as they travel on their next stop.

St. Nick—Santa Claus—is one of our most recognized and beloved cultural icons, his jolly laugh and smiling eyes, a happy reminder that the holidays are near. European immigrants brought to their new country folk characters that over the years became our present-day Santa Claus. One of those characters was Sinterklaas, who delivered presents on the eve of the feast day of St. Nicholas of Myra, a third-century bishop. In an 1809 satire, American author Washington Irving described a dream in which St. Nick embellished the legend with “Santeclaus” arriving in a sleigh drawn by a reindeer.

In 1823, the anonymous publication of the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” perhaps better known as “The Night before Christmas,” helped to shape much of our modern mythology of the holiday. St. Nicholas’s sleigh is pulled by eight flying reindeer, each of them carefully called by name. Dressed in fur, with twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, and dimples, St. Nick visits each home to fill children’s stockings with presents. He is described as a merry, plump elf—very different from the original rather somber bishop.

Twentieth-century artists based their illustrations of Santa Claus on some of Nast’s images, as well as on the description in the poem “The Night Before Christmas.” Their portrayals of a rosy-cheeked, smiling, grandfatherly man in his red, fur-trimmed suit seemed to embody the very essence of “Santa.” A visit from St. Nick brings joy to the kid in all of us.

The A Visit From St. Nick stamps are being issued as Forever® stamps. These Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.

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