Release: SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
If there’s anything sure in this world it’s the promise that “the pendulum” swings in both directions. Be it politics, lifestyles or traditional beliefs, how quickly things turn around!
A favorite from my childhood was microwave ovens. When introduced, the public was warned of the fatal danger of escaping “rays.” We were told they could kill us. We were afraid. Mail order companies hawked detectors that could pick up escaping rays. Could they really? Unlikely. The ovens are designed to retain any waves. Rays also fully dissipate after just 12 inches. We finally accepted them. The pendulum had swung back.
Another childhood memory involves stamps. Near Christmastime, stamps were always filled with images of Santa, Christmas trees, carolers and more. Then, politically correct mandates crept in. Santa, decorated trees, and anything openly “Christmassy” were disallowed – replaced with snowmen, snowflakes and poinsettia flowers. Another pendulum swing.
In recent years, things have again swung back. The 2026 Christmas stamp images and info were just released. The new stamps depict four colorfully decorated Christmas cookies including a generic wrapped gift but also clearly Santa, a Christmas tree and a Christmas stocking.
All the stamps are being issued well in advance of the holidays but are early harbingers of what we can anticipate. They should be showing up in most post offices by the end of this month.
Other issues that might be considered formerly dicey subjects could include stamps honoring Elvis (once considered so “obscene” he was televised only from the waist up). Also, Pete Seeger. He was branded a socialist and banned from multiple TV performances. Seeger penned such summer camp favorites as “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?,” “If I Had A Hammer” and “Turn, Turn, Turn.” Both Elvis and Seeger eventually got their own US stamps. The pendulum returned.
Now, a woman named Linda Eastman is also making her mark on US Postage. Initially under-the-radar, Eastman gained national and international attention when she married former Beatle Paul McCartney in 1969.
Of course, the Beatles had earlier been vilified for their long hair, “loud” music and a comment John Lennon made about their popularity compared to that of Jesus. Linda met Paul in 1967 and soon began being criticized for “helping Yoko Ono break up the Beatles.”
She garnered more ire from British women who believed Paul should only date a girl from the UK. They also didn’t believe she was what a “Beatle wife” should look like (long red hair and freckles.) They were equally dismayed that she was a divorced single mother. She soon joined Paul’s band Wings on vocals and keyboards with no previous musical training. Lots of flack for that too.
Eventually, she became accepted as being Paul’s “anchor” as well as a very successful independent photographer. She and Paul met as a result of her being a noted rock band photographer. Her 1968 portrait of Eric Clapton made her the first female photographer to make the cover of Rolling Stone.
Some opined her standing as a photographer wasn’t deserved given her maiden name of Eastman as in Eastman Kodak. Wrong. Her family was no relation to the Kodak name or fortune. Her father’s original name was Leopold Vail Epstein, a Russian Jew. Her photography skills were her own.
While being a divorced, Jewish single mother married to a rock and roll “hippie” might have kept her shunned some 60 years ago and not eligible for a postage stamp, the pendulum has again swung to a path of sanity.
This month, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where many of Linda McCartney’s photos have been exhibited, the USPS is releasing a full sheet of stamps honoring her and her photos. Impressively, the sheet does not hang its hat on stamps showcasing the Beatles, or Paul, or their music, or their life together.
Instead, the 20 “Forever” stamps feature five different photos of diverse subjects taken by Eastman including a jumping horse in black-and-white; sunflowers; a glass half-filled tea kettle; a vase with a yellow flower against a lace curtain; and cherries on a white table runner. Eclectic, but they nicely represent the diverse photo-eye she had. Printed on the sheet next to a black-and-white self-portrait of her are the words, “Linda McCartney 1941 – 1998. photographer musician animal rights activist.” (As the latter, she was the one to convince Paul to become a vegetarian.) Linda died of breast cancer in 1998. Paul was said to have cried for a year.
So, maybe the postal pendulum is continuing to swing in a more realistic, non-judgmental, and accepting path. If so, given our current political climate, that could be a Christmas miracle unto itself. For more information on First Day of Issue cancels on either the new Christmas or Linda McCartney stamps, log onto www.USPS.gov.
For more collecting stories and advice, log on to: http://prexford.com/.