18.11.2000
Miniature Sheet
 
 

No. of stamps in the set:	4 stamps
Quantity:
Face values:	6c, 6c+3c, 16c+3c, 26c+3c
Size:	46.00 x 27.32 mm 23.02 x 27.32 mm
Presentation:	Sheets of 10 stamps The set also comes in a Miniature Sheet
Colours:	Multi
Gum:
Paper:
Perforation:	13.75 per 2 cm
Print technique:	Offset
Author, design:	Gorg Mallia
Printers:	Bundesdruckerei GmbH

First Day Covers:

 

The Maltese Christmas is a dynamic mixture of traditions that are both imported and native to these islands.

The Christmas tree, for example, is a very popular import, as is the red clad Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, as he is more popularly known, bearing gifts in many guises at children's parties, or posing for multitudinous photographs in city streets.

His clients? The children that await Christmas with trepidation, knowing it will come laden with presents. Not that parents seem to mind too much. Not with presents in hand themselves. So the modern idiom for Christmas seems to be one built round the material need to be surprised with gifts ... be they needed or not.

But Maltese tradition steps in. The traditional 'priedka tat-tifel' (the boy's sermon ... now just as commonly said by girls), with the young lad striking a pose, often with hand to face as if he is about to launch into song. but instead repeating age-old words, taught to the chosen year in year out for decades.

The words? Of Jesus born to Mary, watched over by Joseph his guardian, ensconced in the bare rock of a cave. two thousand years ago (as the calendar would have it).

Or are they just 'pasturi' (crib statuettes), enjoyed by old and young alike ... maybe, this time, by the little girl hugging to herself a newly received rag doll.

And, every year, the whole scene is enacted on stage by village dramatic companies. And the three kings too bear gifts, every year without fail. acting to the tattered script that knew their great-grandfathers.

In Malta, all paths lead to the Church that dominates each village and town. And so they do as well at Christmas time, with families gathering for midnight mass, and, for a moment at least, remembering why it is that Christmas is celebrated.

And over the whole scene, an eternal icon of the feast - the star that led the kings to Jesus, flying high to herald to us all that, yes, it is Christmas once again.
 

 
GORG MALLIA
Born at Qormi, Malta in 1957. Educated at the University of Malta (B.A. Hons. in English, and M.A. in Communication Studies). Mallia is presently reading for a PhD. in Instructional Technology at Sheffield University, UK. He lectures in Communications at the University of Malta.

Mallia is one of Malta's best known cartoonists, with a regular slot on cartoons on local television and a satirical comic strip in a weekly English language newspaper. He has also illustrated dozens of books. and has written and drawn books for children. He is one of the two editors/producers of the children's magazine Saghtar. Mallia designed the ground-breaking cartoon Tourism stamps for Maltapost in 1999.

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