THE CROATIAN CHRISTMAS 1992

Motif: one detail of the painting "The Croatian Christmas" by Ljubo Babić Christmas is a day of exchange of gifts. The God gave to the World in the Christmas-Eve His Only Son, the messenger of joy, although He knew which fate awaits Him. The grandeur of God’s gift asks for a countergift; when one Croatian theologian says that we can make a gift to God only through ourselves - he stresses that through this giving we discover ourselves in the first place. It is not hard to conclude that he came to this discovery living and experiencing our Croatian Christmas. It is no wonder that the motif of Christmas, respectively the birth of little God, became a highly appealing subject, a source of mostly fertile inspiration of many outstanding Croatian artists and of unknown authors, too, who expressed it through folkart and traditional customs. Every sculptor, painter, writer, musician, manifested his own relation to the joyful event placed in a non-descript stable at Bethlehem. They added their personal note to this universal subject according to their proper ways of expressions. The stamp was printed in sheets of 25 pieces each. HPT put on sale the special envelope of the first day of issue (FDC) and a special sheet of stamps as well.