Since I received my First Holy Communion, I never missed the Midnight Mass.

It has always been one special Christmas event in my life. But I would like to share other personal experiences associated with the festive season…

The early years

In the second half of the 1940s, my family was still recovering from the loss of their house in Sannat and the loss of their first baby, Lydia who died of a shrapnel wound during the explosion of one of two large German bombs that fell on the village on October 10, 1942.

In 1943, the family moved to Ta’ Sannat Road, in Victoria, where my father worked at the small power station behind the bishop’s Sacred Heart of Jesus seminary.

My mother was still settling down after giving birth to me. She then had four other children between 1944 and 1949.

Christmas was not any special occasion for the family but, during this period, my father would always be fiddling with lights and once he created a 12-feet long festoon of large, coloured bulbs. He would hang some colourful streamers in the entrance hall and in the kitchen and he used to build a small crib too.

At the time, we used to be told that well-behaving children would receive a present under or beside the pillow on Christmas night. This, they told us, was brought to us by Il-Bambin (Baby Jesus). There was no Father Christmas in Gozo yet.

On the other hand, misbehaving children would receive a piece of black coal.

There was no Christmas tree at our home, either. As children, we never even thought of buying a present for our parents; we didn’t have that custom. 

At home, there were no Christmas carols, either.

For Christmas lunch, my mother would cook a capon or a rabbit, like any other Sunday. She also made delicious trifles with sponge cake, coloured jellies and sweetened ricotta and a special cake for Christmas but it was not a Christmas cake as we know it.

This must have been Christmas for many families in Gozo; in certain villages, it could have been poorer.

At primary school, we used to decorate our class with colourful streamers and balloons, and, before the holiday break, the teacher would give us a small memento as a present. But I only remember Carmel Fenech, in Standard V, giving us hazelnuts as a Christmas gift. We gave him a cake for which I contributed three pence.

In those days, my mother used to wake us up early to hear the daily Mass at Ta’ Pompej church, a few metres up the road where we lived. We would also attend Midnight Mass celebrated by Dun Ġorġ ‘Tal-Mewta’ (later made monsignor).

When I became an altar boy, I really enjoyed the Christmas Mass celebrations and looked forward to the festivities. The church, tended by the Dominican sisters, would be brightly lit, with a manger surrounded by large, beautiful plants of silvery white ‘ġulbiena’ [vetch seed]. I remember the elegantly dressed priests who concelebrated and the choir singing Ninni la tibkix iżjed, Ejjew, ejjew ja Anġli and Adeste fideles, among other Christmas carols.

The sisters used to give me a small crib with a small Baby Jesus made of wax, which I used to treasure and I still have one.

My participation dressed in warm white Dominican vestments was a must in all festivities, especially the Christmas Mass.

It is a pity that our parents never prepared us with any excitement for Christmas. It was not an event we were nurtured to enjoy.

The 1950s

During the Lyceum years, no teacher ever gave us a Christmas present; nor did we give any present to any of the teachers.

It was in the Salesian Boy Scouts that I started enjoying games, carols and a Christmas party. There was a time when I also entertained the group with the ‘magic’ tricks I had learnt from my father’s Popular Mechanics magazine.

But then I was growing up. We were in the 1950s. The English customs of decorating with a Christmas tree, having a turkey for the Christmas lunch and Father Christmas replacing Il-Bambin, slowly started penetrating the Gozitan community.

Still, Baby Jesus dominated our Christmas at home.

I learnt how to build a presepju (crib) with small and large rough stones [gagazz] which I went to pick from Il-Qasam, midway along the road between Victoria and Sannat, with golden rina [fine golden dust collected from caves], leħjet ix-xiħ and sagħtar [wild thyme] which we picked from Ta’ Ċenċ. I used to buy coloured clay pasturi (figurines) and scattered some soil along the way that led to the nativity cave. 

Getting married

When I was 23 years old, I started going out with my future wife, Irma. Christmas gained more importance then.

Irma’s family celebrated Christmas with great love. At home, they played Christmas carols and even had a live six-foot high Christmas tree. The Christmas Day dinner was simply sumptuous.

But the landmark Christmas of my life was that of 1967, when Irma and I got married on December 24. It was the first time that the church started allowing marriages to take place during Advent. Before, the church did not even allow marriages during Lent (before Easter Sunday).

My morning wedding was celebrated by Fr Wistin Azzopardi and took place in the church of St Joseph’s Institute, in Santa Venera. It was followed by a reception at the Imperial Hotel, Sliema.

Late in the afternoon, we flew to Catania for our honeymoon, where we slept at Hotel Duomo.

At 11.30pm, we just crossed the square and went to hear the Midnight Mass at the Duomo. It was poorly lit and only five or six more people attended the celebration.

More memories

There was a time when I started writing a Christmas feature about the nativity, which would be enacted by children from the community before the Midnight Mass. This went on for several years.

In October 1991, I started flying regularly to Naples where I delivered lectures on the Maltese language at the Università degli Studi (l’Orientale) as Lettore di Scambio.

The university building was some 500 metres from Via San Gregorio Armeno – it’s an alley replete with Christmas shops selling decorations, small and large cribs and figurines of all sizes and make.

These include clay and papier machè figurines of Holy Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, sheep, cows and donkeys, washer women, pulcinella and of some modern important figures like those of Silvio Berlusconi, Totò, Diego Maradona and, naturally, Pope Francis.

I have bought several Christmas statuettes for home and some relatives from this street and I still treasure my set.

The pandemic

During the coronavirus pandemic, I missed celebrating Christmas but, this year, we are preparing for a truly happy Christmas.

My wife has built a large crib and put up some decorations while I put up the Christmas tree, the lights and am also in charge of the Christmas carols.

We are back to celebrating Christmas as we have always been.