MaltaMedia.com

by Daniel Bartolo

It was Mons. Pietro Dusina who in 1555 made the first step towards the devotion of the birth of Christ. He encouraged the foundation of religious guilds of Our Lady of the Rosary. These had as a main objective to create awareness towards the mysteries of joy, mostly of Christmas. He ordered that some religious ceremonies, which were held exclusively at the cathedral, were to be held in parishes so people could assist them too.

The Knights of St. John used to celebrate the midnight mass with great enthusiasm. They used to wear special clothes whilst hearing appropriate music and prayers. The secular priests were never so enthusiastic about Christmas. It was thanks to the friars who gave a big help in order to give something tangible to the common people.

The religious guilds of the Holy Rosary of Vittoriosa and Rabat began organising a novena (nine days of devotion before Christmas). It was mainly a mass with singing. In 1599 the Dominican friars of Valletta organised a novena too.

The Crib

There are three representations about Christmas:

(i) figurines (”pasturi”) on their own with the main characters being Our Lady, St. Joseph and Baby Jesus

(ii) the grotto in which Jesus was born, the Holy Family with the donkey, cow, bull, sheep and shepherds

(iii) besides the crib, some add a scene,panorama or more figurines.

Wheat (”qamh”) and canary seed (”gulbiena”) are surely very popular at this time of the year. There used to be folk tunes and singing with local instruments.

The tradition of building cribs in churches and homes began in the 13th century by the Franciscan friars. In Malta the Dominican friars made the first crib around 1617. Maybe it was the first ever crib in Malta. The friars used to organise processions too. They used oil lamps and paper lanterns.

Well-known cribs were those of Karmni Grima. In 1887 Dominic Pace opened a crib for the public at the Circolo in Sliema. In 1910 there were two cribs in the Prince of Wales (Sliema) and St. Anne Street (Attard). There were soon many others.

In the 19th century, figurines were made of clay and made through a common design (form). At the end of the century coal (”gagazza” in Maltese) was used as there were many ships passing by. Soon after as paper was more popular, paper pulp became the raw material for grottoes. In the 1950s, polystyrene made its appearance in cribs. Nowadays one can find figurines made up of wax, plastic, cloth, stone, glass etc.

There was the foundation of two clubs namely the ‘Friends of Cribs’ in Gozo (1985) and in Malta. They organise meetings between members and encourage public cribs. There a lot of programs on TV and radio nowadays. Some parishes organise live cribs where real people represent the Nativity of 2001 years ago.

Contemporary Celebration of Christmas

Nowadays it’s a must for all the Maltese to give and receive presents sometimes involving large sums of money. Cards are so popular that all post offices have great difficulties in coping with all the work. Recently we have introduced e-cards so in this sense maybe the postal services will be relieved! Christmas trees and cards were imported from Germany in the 19th century.

Parties and super parties are part of the festive season. Even companies indulge in such activities. On Christmas Eve many young people celebrate all night out! Others prefer to assist to the midnight mass. In many parishes the lay society Museum takes care of the procession with baby Jesus accompanied by children. The museum was the first to introduce such procession in 1921 in Hamrun. The midnight mass follows where the church is adorned with flowers, lights and damask. During the mass itself the most touching part is the homily (learnt by heart) of the young boy. There are special songs and carols for this day and the whole nativity period.
On Christmas day all the family with aunts, nephews, grand daughters and grand sons, and the rest of the family eat a super dinner together. The main menu is the turkey (”dundjan”) although not all families have the same taste. The turkey became popular during the first and the second world war when thousands of sailors and soldiers from the British Empire were stationed in Malta. Prior to these wars, a rooster (”serduq”) rather then a turkey was the bird to be served at Christmas dinner. There are also special sweets, as described elsewhere on this website.

In the private homes, nowadays besides the crib one finds the Christmas tree full of flashing colourful bulbs. There are countless cribs on display sometimes involving highly detailed and technical ones.

One notices that although the Maltese people are careful to reproduce details when making a crib, nobody seems to tackle the idea of a contemporary crib where the Maltese situation can be represented with Maltese personalities. If we cannot give a new interpretation to old customs I’m afraid that they will lose their popularity. Consequently we will be shedding a part of our culture. This is being focused upon in our Sunday gospel reflections on the Maltese situation.

P.S. May I make a general appeal in order to urge all the competent authorities or persons in order to make a a truly scientific study about such customs as in my little research work I found many quotations unreliable or else in direct contradiction with other quotations, sometimes of the same author!

Go to the main page of the MaltaMedia.com Special Traditional Maltese Christmas Feature.