Title of stamp: Celebration
Issue date: January 15, 2007

A stamp to celebrate

Everyone loves a celebration, whether it’s a birthday, graduation or other special event. We enjoy buying gifts and cards, and wrapping them up in brightly coloured paper. And now there’s a special stamp that you can put on all of your celebratory mail—Canada Post’s Celebration stamp. This domestic rate (52¢) stamp is bursting with happiness and joy, and has a design that’s covered in confetti and ribbons, which are associated with just about any celebration you can imagine.

No one really knows how long people have been using ribbons as decorative streamers and to wrap and decorate gifts, but it’s said that confetti was first used in January 1891 in Paris, France. While history has lost the name of the man who created the first confetti, which was used during a celebration at the Casino de Paris, we do know that his invention was very well received. The first confetti was created by cutting paper into tiny pieces by hand but, by the end of the 19^th century, machinery was manufacturing up to 3,300 pounds of confetti a day. Today, this symbol of celebration is made mostly from paper, plastic, metal or silk, and is produced in a variety of colours and thousands of imaginative shapes.