I am a bit behind on sending out my Christmas cards this year. I wrote them up last night and went to the post office this morning to pick up some holiday stamps and send them off.<\/p>\n
As I was waiting in line to purchase some stamps, there was a display showing all of the different holiday stamps that were available. There were stamps for Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Ramadan, with many different designs and colors. I liked the blue ones.<\/p>\n
When it’s my turn, I go up to the counter. “I’d like to buy some stamps.”<\/p>\n
“Holiday stamps or non-holiday?” the mail lady asks.<\/p>\n
“Holiday.”<\/p>\n
So she pulls out the two designs for Christmas: some goofy cartoonish designs and a Virgin Mary with Jesus. I liked the Virgin Mary ones but I didn’t want to get them because I used those last year. They also would have grossly overemphasized the Catholic theme I had going with my Christmas cards, which are adorned with a picture of St. Peter’s Basilica. That building is a lovely work of architecture, hence why I picked them out.<\/p>\n
“Do you have those dark blue ones that are on display back there,” I inquired.<\/p>\n
“The Eid ones?” She glances around. “Do you know those are for Ramadan<\/font>?” The mail lady whispered the last word with a worried look in her eyes as if she were about to be clobbered.<\/p>\n I immediately think, “They’re for Ramadan? Cool!”<\/p>\n “Yes,” I reply.<\/p>\n Another mail lady in the station next to ours leaned over and said, “You sure you didn’t want Hanukkah stamps?” I gave her a funny look.<\/p>\n My mail lady eventually returns with the Eid ul-Fitr* stamps — she had to hunt for them — and rings them up. “That will be $7.40.”<\/p>\n I pay, grab my festive blue stamps, and go to mail off my Christmas cards.<\/p>\n So, now for the burning question. Why would I want to use Ramadan stamps on an ambiguously Catholic Christmas card? In truth, I only picked them out because they were pretty. Simple, simple.<\/p>\n However, I certainly don’t mind the after-effect these cards will portray: no matter what you are celebrating, we all are celebrating, so why don’t we rejoice together? “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Hanukkah,” and “Happy Holidays” all mean the same thing to me: “I wish you well.”<\/p>\n _______________________ I am a bit behind on sending out my Christmas cards this year. I wrote them up last night and went to the post office this morning to pick up some holiday stamps and send them off. As I was waiting in line to purchase some stamps, there was a display showing all of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchythoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n* that’s the Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, by the by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"