Christmas 2019

This domestic Christmas-card-rate traditional Christmas stamp shows Joseph, Mary and Jesus escaping Herod’s wrath by fleeing to Egypt. Joseph leads the donkey carrying Mary and the swaddled infant Christ, while in the background Herod’s pursuing soldiers encounter a peasant tending a wheat crop. A legend relates how a field of wheat miraculously grew as the Holy Family passed. When questioned by the soldiers, the peasant could truthfully say that the trio went by when his crop was planted. Thinking they must be far ahead, the soldiers then abandoned the chase.

In the international-rate traditional Christmas stamp, we see the first episode of the featured manuscript, which occurred shortly after the birth of Christ, when three wise men from the east followed the guiding star to Bethlehem to pay homage to the newborn Jesus. They kneel and bow before the tiny child seated on his mother’s lap, and offer precious gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. When King Herod heard of the birth of Christ he resolved to seek him out and kill him.