September 21 | 
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Cross Wires: Royal Mail ignore Pope’s call to keep Christ in Christmas celebrations
There is nothing quite like evidence of the continued secularisation of Christmas to make Pope Benedict XVI’s warning on the marginalisation of religion, made during his visit to the UK, hit home.
Today Royal Mail has released images of five 2010 Christmas stamps featuring the animated characters Wallace and Gromit.
Royal Mail publishes festive stamps with religious and secular themes in alternate years and, it has been reported that 2010 is the turn of secular designs. Royal Mail has explained stamps featuring the Madonna and child will still be on sale over the Christmas period, but this means customers have to specifically ask for them.
So the powers that be at Royal Mail still think that keeping Christ in Christmas once every two years is enough then? Thank goodness not all mail carriers are as thrawn.
Next month the Isle of Man Post Office will release three £1 stamps showing scenes from the award-winning bible-based TV show and DVD collection Friends and Heroes (see photograph above).
The three £1 stamps in this miniature sheet tell the Christmas Story. The first features Joseph and Mary in the stable shortly after Jesus’s birth. The announcement of the birth was given to a group of shepherds by an angelic choir and this features on the second stamp. The Three Wise Men who followed the star complete the trio of stamps within the sheet.
“Never in our wildest dreams did we expect to be involved in creating stamps for Friends and Heroes,” Alison and David Dorricott, executive producers of the show, said. “But we are delighted that the Isle of Man Post Office should choose our images for this modern re-telling of the Christmas Story which will strongly remind you of this life-changing event.
Royal Mail take note.
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