THE Royal Mail is running a competition for primary school-aged children to design the official Christmas stamp for 2017.

This competition has only been run on three previous years – 1966, 1981, and 2013.

The theme of this year’s competition is 'What does the Christmas season mean to you?' and two winning designs will be selected to appear on the Royal Mail 1st and 2nd class postage stamps.

Deadline for entries is Friday March, 17.

Local MP Steven Paterson has written to every primary school in the Stirling area to urge pupils to get involved.

He said: "This competition gives local kids a chance to get creative and design a stamp that truly reflects what Christmas means to them.

"I know how engaging these competitions can be, every year I run my own competition locally to design my parliamentary Christmas card and, without fail, receive an array of talented designs.

"With so many budding artists in our local primary schools, I know there will be lots of great ideas and hopefully we will be sending our Christmas cards this year with a stamp designed here in the Stirling area."