Christmas is the most important religious holiday in Malta, since the islands are Catholic by nature, most people attend mass on Christmas. These days, the churches are packed with Christmas.
In Maltese Happy/Merry Christmas is translated as ‘Il-Milied it-Tajjeb’.
The churches are decorated by the regular church go-ers, in addition to the lights that most churches already have, all year long. Mostly, there are more lights put up and the people build cribs for baby Jesus. These days, some advanced cribs are mechanical, allowing the figures to move! Usually, the decor is finished before Christmas with the exeption of the baby Jesus figure, who is put in the cribbe at midnight on Christmas eve. The cribbe tradition is very important to the Maltese people, with the oldest cribbe still in place dating back to 1670. This can be found in the St. Peter’s Monastery in Mdina, the then-capital of Malta. The tradition, imported from Italy at first, became a whole new Maltese tradition, when the people had slowly adapted the scene to feature more typical Maltese buildings and faces, with the Italians slowly ruled out of the scene completely.
Processions on Christmas Eve date back to 1921, when Hamrun was the first town to host a procession. Of course, street lights were minimal in those days, so people brought candles to light up the statue of baby Jesus, carried shoulder-high through the streets. The idea of a procession quikly gained popularity, and is still a very important part of Christmas Eve celebrations.
Maltese houses are often decorated with cribs and figures associated with Christmas, such as shepherds and angels. Large figures of baby Jesus are often put behind windows or on balconies to be lit at night. Of course, every house has at least one Christmas Tree, decorated with balls, lights and garlands.
One Maltese Christmas tradition is the ‘Priedka tat-Tifel’, meaning, ‘the preaching of the child’. This means that a boy or girl, usually between 7 and 10 years of age, leads the preaching of the sermon at the midnight mass. He of she then temporarily replaces the priest! The children learn the sernom by heart and study for weeks and often add a personal touch to the story of Jesus’ birth.
Children traditionally follow the American way of getting presents, through Santa Claus, he sometimes even knocks on doors!
Food is very important to the Maltese people, and even more so with Christmas. Usually, people home-cook for Christmas Lunch, where the whole family comes together. Traditionally, people eat fattend rooster, ‘hasi’, roasted at the local bakery in a casserole full of potatoes and vegetables. The traditional dessert would be Treacle Ring, called ‘Qaghqa tal-Ghasel’, and Chestnut and Cocoa Soup called ‘Imbuljata tal-Qastan’ to finish it off.
More modern Christmas menu’s include Turkey, cakes, puddings and mince pies. These are all imported from British traditions, while Panetone has been imported from Italy to become a Christmas Favourite.
