2026Christmas Seals - 50 Years of Christmas Seals - Sheetlets

About the Artist
Lena Nicolajsen graduated in Visual Communication from the Danish Design School in 2008. She runs her own studio and has designed everything from toys and posters to food calendars in the Faroe Islands. She regularly takes part in exhibitions, including at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. She mainly works with children’s books and publishes books both in the Faroe Islands and Denmark, where she lives when she is not at home in the Faroes.

About the 2026 Christmas Seals
My grandmother, Ingibjørg, collected stamps all her life. I remember how she used to receive the latest stamps from Posta. I remember how beautiful they were. To me, they were like little paintings.

I particularly remember when Rannvá Kunoy won a drawing competition and her drawing was made into a stamp for Amnesty. I thought it was amazing that a drawing could become a stamp. We went to the same school, so it suddenly felt very real to me. Perhaps that was when the idea of working with images first took root.

And then there were the Christmas Seals. My grandmother bought several sheets, which she put on the Christmas cards she wrote, while I sat watching and drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream.

For a few years, the Christmas Seals consisted of one large illustration, with each individual seal forming a separate image. I liked those best, so naturally, when I was given the opportunity to create this year’s seals, I chose to do the same.

I am a winter person, and I love the darkness, the cold, the snow and especially the Northern Lights.

That is when I go into hibernation and spend most of my time at home with my family. My idea was to draw islands in hibernation, giants in the sea sleeping beneath the starry sky, the Northern Lights and snowflakes. In the middle of the sheet, a Christmas star hangs and shines. Christmas ships sail between the islands, and the villages light up. There are pixies carrying lanterns on the mountain tops, and of course, it is snowing.

I paint in watercolours, so I had to enlarge the artwork to poster size to capture all the details. It was a lovely assignment to work on. I wish my grandmother could have seen it she would have been so proud!
Merry Christmas

50 Years of Christmas Seals
This year marks 50 years since the first Faroese Christmas Seals were issued on 1 November 1976. The first Christmas Seals were designed by Torben Lundberg. During the first three years, the proceeds from their sale went to Barnahjálpargrunnin, whose purpose was to provide financial support to fatherless children in the Faroe Islands.

In December 1979, the Christmas Seal Foundation was established to distribute the proceeds from the sale of Christmas Seals. Since then, the proceeds have been used to support charitable causes benefiting children and young people in the Faroe Islands. Anyone can apply for support, and the foundation’s board decides how the funds are distributed. The foundation is administered in cooperation with Posta.

Many different Faroese artists have designed the Christmas Seals over the years, helping to give them a distinctive Faroese character. For many years, each sheet contained 30 Christmas Seals, while today a sheet contains 15.

For 50 years, Christmas Seals have been part of Christmas in the Faroe Islands appearing on Christmas cards, gifts and Christmas mail. This year, we continue this special tradition with a new set of Christmas Seals.