Why a Cape Breton post office handled a lot of mail every December
CBC Archives | Posted: December 8, 2020 1:30 PM | Last Updated: December 5, 2022
Christmas Island postmark was a sought-after addition to holiday cards
How'd you like to spend Christmas on Christmas Island?
The atoll in the South Pacific, now known as Kiribati, was the subject of a song recorded by the Andrews Sisters with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians in 1946.
As a British colony, it was also the site of atomic tests in the 1950s, perhaps rendering it a less appealing place for a "holiday across the sea" despite boasting a "great big coconut tree" or two.
But Canada has its own Christmas Island, a community on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and in 1997 the CBC's Frank King visited to find out what the holiday season was like there.
All about the postmark
"Last Christmas and the Christmas before, we had 17,000 Christmas cards," Postmaster Margaret Rose McNeil told King, who noted the rural outlet typically served "a few hundred people."
"That's not parcels and it's not our regular mail," clarified McNeil.
Why? It all came down to the ink she stamped on each card: a postmark bearing an image of a wreath and the words Christmas Island.
"People from all over bring their cards here for that extra touch of Christmas," said King.
The postmark, by the way, showed up best on a white envelope.
Besides being "a great advertisement for the tourists," as a visitor phrased it, Christmas Island also seemed to give kids an edge when they sent their letters to the North Pole.
"Children that mail cards or letters here to Santa Claus — they're put in this little bag and they're off to Santa Claus," said McNeil, who herself was dressed in garb typically reserved for Mrs. Claus.