Postcrossing Blog

Happy New Year! May it be a brilliant one!

Last month we invited everyone to write about a famous food from your region in the postcards you were sending out. So… what new delicacies did you learn about? 😋 Are you going to give them a try?

(For those that are new to them, the writing prompts are an ongoing experiment that invites postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcard’s messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!)

This month’s writing prompt was suggested by Jetske. Here it goes:

Sounds simple enough, right? But wouldn’t it be interesting to know how your typical day differs from someone else’s across the world?

For instance, my commute is probably the shortest out there, as I just work from our home office on my laptop all day (not in pijamas though!). A typical day around here is filled with emails, posts, research and coffee… as well as occasional visits from the neighbourhood’s cats! 🐈

What about you? What does your typical day look like? Are you strict about schedules or tend to go with the flow? Do you have a long commute? And do you interact with a lot of other people (or cats)?

You can choose to give the recipient of your postcard a broad overview of your days, or focus on something specific if you feel that would be more relevant. Whichever approach you choose, I’m sure it’ll be interesting to read about.

Have a good month, filled with lovely postcards!

A few postcrossers might remember that a long time ago, Flickr had a series of interviews with photographers, in which they always asked the same five questions. One of them was this one:

"When we interview peeps for employment here at Team Flickr, we always ask: “Kittens, babies, sunsets or flowers? Pick one.”

We thought this was a good topic to break the seriousness of last month’s poll and try something different. So… kittens, babies, sunsets or flowers?

Turns out, it’s sunsets all the way with the Postcrossing crowd! Almost half of us prefer sunsets to any of the other options, followed by kittens, then flowers … and babies always seem to come last! Why is that, i wonder? 🤔

The results are very consistent from country to country too, with South Korea and Lithuania going a bit against the trend and preferring kittens to sunsets.

So what do you think? What motivated your pick, and how do you interpret these results?

PS: We’re always looking for new poll ideas! If you think of something cool to ask postcrossers (and that would fit in a poll), let us know in the comments.

We really hope you’ve all been good boys and girls this year (and not just the children!), because Santa has most definitely been keeping an eye… Still, if you’d like to plead your case, perhaps a beautifully handwritten letter with some compliments wouldn’t hurt? 😉

We encourage everyone to keep this tradition alive, especially among the little ones. For many, this is their first time writing a letter, and it can be a magical moment of discovery and awe.

To give you a hand in this task, here’s the list of Santa’s addresses around the world:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belarus
• Canada
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• New Zealand
• Russia
• Slovakia
• United Kingdom
• USA

In many other countries, it’s enough to address your letters to “Santa Claus” (or his name in your language). For instance, in Portugal you mail your letters to “Pai Natal”, and you’ll get a reply.

If Santa’s address for your country isn’t listed above, check with your local post office for more details and let everyone know in the comments below (with a link, if possible). Happy Holidays! 🎄

Another month starts and it’s time for a new suggestion for the messages on your postcards! But first, let us ask: did last month’s writing prompt help you unlock some creativity and write a bit more on your postcards? We really hope so!

(For those that are new to them, the writing prompts are an ongoing experiment that invites postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcard’s messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!)

December’s writing prompt was suggested by Heepy on the forum. Here it goes:

This should be an easy one, right? Around here in the south of Portugal, the “holy trinity of crops” consists of almonds, carob and figs. Most of the local sweets will include one or more of these, giving them a very characteristic taste and texture. After extensive research, we can confirm it’s absolutely delicious! I could definitely write about it at length on my postcards… 😋

What about you, what is typical from your region? We invite you to pick a favourite local dish or sweet and tell your recipients all about it on your December postcards — you might even inspire someone across the world to try it out someday!

PS – Got some cool ideas for more prompts? Feel free to share them on this forum thread!

December is juuuuust around the corner, and we know that many of our German members have been waiting for the announcement of our yearly collaboration with Deutsche Post. So it’s my pleasure to let you all know that our “Postcards for a good cause” campaign will also take place this year! Hurray! The rules haven’t changed, but for those who are new to Postcrossing or need a little refresher, here they are:

If you’re in Germany, all you have to do is send postcards, as many as you can! If your December postcards are registered before the end of February 2018, you will be contributing to this cause.

And although only postcards sent from Germany count, there’s always a receiver in every postcard exchange — so each time a card from Germany is registered, the recipient will be indirectly contributing to this donation too!

To keep things interesting, there’s also cool prizes for some randomly selected participants (residents in Germany only):

• Two €50 vouchers for www.allyouneed.com.
• Three €40 vouchers for Marke Individuell.
• Three post-themed messenger bags from Deutsche Post.

Pretty cool, right? All you need to do is send a postcard, and you’ll be automatically helping and entering in this lucky draw. As usual, the winners will be picked by Paulo's nifty random number generator in March 2018, at which point we will also announce here on the blog the total amount raised by German postcrossers to Stiftung Lesen. Last year, a grand total of €8,372.10 was raised for this good cause! 😊

Stiftung Lesen is a German non-profit organization, working to boost literacy in the population, especially among children, adolescents and newly arrived refugee families. Literacy and increasingly media literacy as well, are essencial requirements for success in life both on its professional and civic aspects. The funds raised in this campaign help the organisation run its many initiatives, such as reading clubs, libraries or research projects.

So… what are you waiting for? If you’re in Germany, get your postcards and stamps ready! The more cards you send in December, the more you’ll contribute — and the more chances you’ll have of winning a voucher, stamps or one of those neat messenger bags! 📯

P.S. – As always, we respect your personal information and will not share it with any company without your explicit permission. The full details of this campaign can be read here (German only).