Christmas Carols

Date of Issue : 11 November 2008

Hi ! The winters have started here as we are in hills. But the season is changing throughout the country leaving behind the hot days. Christmas, the biggest festival celebrated all over the world is coming next month which brings joy to everyone. This joy can be seen on everyone's face as having long awaited vacations and the loveliest festival. In Shimla people just wait for the snowfall on this day ! The snow in Chistmas just doubles the joy as playing in snow is a great fun.Those who are waiting for Christmas I have the most beautiful stamps on Christmas carols issued on 11th November by Gibraltar.The Christmas carols are sung during Christmas. Here are some most popular carols depicted on these colourful stamps.These beautiful stamps show lovely pictures on Christmas - Santa Clause, Christmas tree and much more signifying different Christmas carols. The stamps are really fascinating and children will love them to see .So just show them to your children or grand children too. This set is one of the best sets issued on Christmas this year so far. The FDC is eaually beautiful. In our regular series some nice FDCs of se-tenant stamps from the collection of our member Mr. Shrikant Parikh. This is all for Today........More in next.....Till then Have a Great Time !.....

This year’s Gibraltar Christmas stamps celebrate the wonderful carols sung by children before and during Christmas both at school and at home.The tradition of Christmas carols hails back as far as the 19th century, although carols were originally communal songs sung during celebrations like harvest tide as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols began to be sung in church, and to be specifically associated with Christmas.

Christmas Carols

Carols suffered a decline in popularity after the Reformation in the countries where Protestant churches gained prominence but survived in rural communities until the revival of interest in carols in the 19th century. The first appearance in print of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, “The First Noel”, “I Saw Three Ships” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” was in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833) by William B. Sandys. Composers like Arthur Sullivan helped to repopularize the carol, and it is this period that gave rise to such favorites as “Good King Wenceslas” and “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”, a New England carol written by Edmund H. Sears and Richard S. Willis.Today carols are regularly sung at Christian religious services . Some compositions have words which are clearly notof a religious theme, but are often still referred to as “carols”. For example, the sixteenth century song “A Bone, God Wot!” appears to be a wassailing song (which is sung during drinking or while requesting ale), but is described in the British Museum’s Cottonian Collection as a Christmas carol. Though many Christmas carols were written prior to the 20th century, several modern compositions have been written in more recent times.

The stamps depict interpretation of the lyrics of kids’ favourite carols: ‘When Santa got stuck a chimney’depicting Santa unable to move as the chimney is too narrow for him!; ‘Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer’ depictingRudolph, lead reindeer, pulling on Santa’s sleigh overlooked by the friendly stars; ‘Oh Christmas tree’ featuring a childopening up presents under the tree; ‘Away in a manger’ depicting Jesus in the manger and ‘Jingle Bells’ depicting theone-horse open sleigh...hey!

A Journey to Indian Stamps - FDCs of se-tenant stamps

From Collection of Shrikant Parikh

Medicinal Plants - Block of four - 7 April 2003

Medicinal Plants - Horizontal strip

Tempale Architecture - 15 September 2003

Jnanpith Award Winners - 9 October 2003