CHRISTMAS'S real message seems to be alive and well after a post office sold out of their religious festive stamps.

CHRISTMAS'S real message seems to be alive and well after a post office sold out of their religious festive stamps.

Royal Mail announced this year their special edition Christmas stamps would have a pantomime theme, but they would also make last year's traditional “mother and child” stamps available.

The response of customers speaks for itself. Hadleigh Post Office has already run out of the religious ones, despite Royal Mail reportedly making four times as many pantomime stamps available.

Jeremy Brown, manager of Hadleigh Post office, said: “We get allotted an amount of each and I believe that everywhere is allotted more secular ones than mother and child.

“Some customers have said to me, 'make sure you ask for the religious ones.' I tried to order more of the just the 'religious' stamps but I had to order both. Since then I have ordered more by special delivery.”

The traditional stamps celebrate the religious meaning of Christmas, featuring Mary and baby Jesus, as well as four angels; Peace, Joy, Goodwill and Glory.

This year, the first class stamp is of Aladdin's Genie, while the second class is adorned by Cinderella's distinctively masculine ugly sisters.

Captain Hook, from Peter Pan, is on the 50p stamp and the 81p version features Snow White's Wicked Queen.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: “Tens of millions of both types of special Christmas stamps have been distributed across the Post Office network so that our customers can choose between the popular Madonna and Child stamps, first issued last year, or the Pantomime set.”