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James from Missoula, MT US
The Christmas story that is the most popular amongst Christian communities is the Nativity. This is the Christmas story which tells about the birth of Jesus Christ. The Christmas story about the Nativity, as stated on the Holy Bible, has been translated in various languages. It informs people about the birth of the infant Jesus in a manger situated on Bethlehem, and it also talks about a star guiding three wise men to the manger to acknowledge the birth of the Savior. The Holy Bible also states that the angels had proclaimed the birth of the Savior by singing melodies that very much represent the modern-day Christmas carols or the act of caroling during the holiday season.
There are even non-Christians and non-Catholics that have heard the Christmas story about the birth of Jesus Christ, and the Nativity is widely popular amongst kids and grownups alike around the globe. But for kids in particular, another famous holiday story is that of Santa Claus, also referred to as Saint Nicolas by most European communities.
Saint Nicolas has been known in European tradition and religious history as the bringer of gifts and prosperity. The modern-day image of Saint Nicolas, or Santa Claus, was popularized by an ad in the mid 1970s about the best selling soft drink - Coke. The modern-day image of Santa Claus, which depicts good old Santa Claus in red robes happily singing while riding on his flying reindeer-driven sleigh, was featured as a TV ad by Coca-Cola during the 1970s, and it has stuck in the minds of children and grownups alike up until now.
There are also Christmas stories about the personal lives of celebrities, and these stories have all been shown as movies. There are even those stories about the childhood holiday memories of various people that have been written on books so as to share their experiences with the world. A widely popular book about an individual's personal holiday experiences is The Christmas Story, a real-life masterpiece of Jean Shepherd, and this book was also released as a movie during the early 1980s, which was directed by Bob Clark.
Maria from Atlanta, GA US
Christmas at our home
On Christmas eve all the family Dress as if we are going to a fancy dinner and go together to 6 pm Mass. After Mass we all go back home and have a formal sitting down dinner. At each place setting I put a candle, each one says a wish not for the family but for the world and light his or her own candle, the table is all lighted up with love and prayers for the needs of the world. It is a long seatting down meal because we sit and talk children and adults together.
Around 5 mts. before the stroke of midnight 11:55 we gather together in the family room where the christmas tree is with a small manger under it - Chrismas is never withouth a manger under the tree - the manger is without baby Jesus until at the stroke of midnight I put the baby, an italian porcelain baby with a yellow dress my grandmother made by hand for him. Everybody reads different parts from a booklet that I pass around we begin at the annunciation until his birth then we sing to baby Jesus and then we have a long moment for each one prayer of private intentions and prayer and thanksgiving.
After all of this we stand up and began to hug each other and wishing each one Merry Christmas. Then we open our gifts. At about 1 am all go to bed and I clean up for our afternoon family dinner nest day. It is the best two days of my year, the Birth of our saviour!!!
Graziella María from Mexico City, II MX
My husband and I are Mexican. We lived in England while he studied for a D. Phil. at Sussex University. We met friends from several countries in the Meeting House Chapel, where we used to celebrate a truly "Catholic" (universal) mass. Two of our best friends later became our daughter`s godparents. When my daughter was 9 months old we came back to Mexico.
These British friends (and "compadres") have come to stay with us on a few holidays. But the Christmas I`ll never forget was when Verónica, my daughter, had just turned two years old.In Mexico, the big Christmas celebration is Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day.Families go to Mass at night and then have a big dinner party at a relative´s home. This is a special party in which many children are allowed to stay up till very late.
In my husband´s and in many families, people used to do and continue doing the following, which we now keep as a tradition as well:
After mass, on Christmas eve, the family gathers around the Nativity scene, in which the manger is empty. The figure of Baby Jesus is brought out of its "storage" place and given to the youngest member of the family, in our case, Verónica, to pass it around for all to "kiss" it. Then, she and Guadalupe, her nearly 3 year-old cousin, "rocked" the baby to sleep. We then asked Verónica to give the "niño Jesús" to Guadalupe so that she could place him in the manger. She didn´t really want to, but she obeyed nevertheless! Usually, the same child does all of these things, but we had them share to prevent a quarrel, which luckily didn`t happen when Verónica agreed to surrender the precious baby!
We were singing some carols as we did this... and THEN Verónica suddenly put everything together: my brother´s reading from Luke´s gospel, the decorations, what we all had tried to explain to her, and the little baby in the manger... and she shouted at the top of her voice "¡Ya nació!" (He is born at last!)She repeated this many times, while she ran around the room. She was so truly happy. It was very endearing to watch such a small child discovering the true meaning of Christmas for the very first time.
I hope we all renew our joy in re-discovering that our Lord was indeed born one day, and that He will come again.
It was also a special Christmas because we were thrilled to be with these friends again, and we sang some English and Mexican carols, and some from other countries that have become classics around the world.
The following day we went to my auntie´s for Christmas lunch, which we also get to celebrate because of the European origin of parts of our families. My friends brought crackers from England,which my extended family loved, and we had mulled wine and mince pies (which only a few people loved, and as a result I´m afraid I ate and drank one too many) and wore the English Christmas hats everybody thought were wonderfully silly.
We have been blessed with traditions and friends from many countries, and it´s wonderful to experience the Church as one big family.
Feliz Navidad a todos desde la Ciudad de México (Merry Christmas to you all from Mexico City) Your sister in Christ, Chela (Graziella) Raluy de Turnbull
Patrick George McDonald from Rocky Mountain House, Ab., CA
Each of us can remember a Christmas that seems to stand out and tug at our very souls. Mine happened several years ago when I was a struggling and inexperienced young lawyer, still unsure of my future journey.
It was Christmas Eve 1961 and my wife and I were looking forward to attending midnight Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral in Calgary. Going with us would be our one-year old daughter Carolyn, born the year before in December.
A telephone call.
It was around 10 p.m. when the phone rang. My wife answered hoping it was our parents calling from Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.
"It's the police station."
I took the phone and was informed by a young police constable friend of mine that I should come down and meet with a young girl who had just been arrested. I meekly protested but realized that it was unusual for the police to call and was assured that, "you should listen to this."
When I arrived at the old police station in downtown Calgary I was ushered into a cell by a matron where a young girl of 16 was crying on the edge of a cell bunk. Snuggled on the bed all wrapped up was a tiny baby girl of very few months.
The young mother, a runaway from a southern Alberta town, had been struggling to make ends meet. Her little amount of cash had depleted and she found herself desperate on a Christmas Eve in Calgary, deciding to sell her services - something she had never done nor even thought about until that evening.
The very first person she approached was the young constable going off duty and in his street clothes. To compound his amazement, the young mother had her baby daughter with her.
So started the chain of events that brought me to the police station on that long ago Christmas Eve.
The cells were empty when I arrived. She related that she had run away several months before, frightened to tell her parents that she had become pregnant. She had no previous record and was not known at all to the police. The look in her terrified eyes told me everything.
I asked her if she would like me now to contact her mom and dad but she was afraid that they would be ashamed of her and would not want to talk to her. I phoned a Crown prosecutor friend who, after being told the circumstances, phoned a mutual friend, a police magistrate. In the meantime I called her parents. They were overwhelmed with emotion that their daughter had been located. I also explained that they were now grandparents.
When the prosecutor and magistrate arrived it was decided, the arresting officer concurring, that justice would not be served by having this young mother enter the processes of the criminal courts. A makeshift court was convened and charges were withdrawn.
The young mother and child were placed into my custody to deliver to her parents. A bus was leaving for her hometown around midnight and we all decided to accompany her and her young daughter to the bus depot. She had no money so each of us chipped in to gather enough money for her ticket. We got her safely on board.
As the young mother gave each of us a hug, and climbed the steps of the Greyhound, it was difficult not to muster tears.
I hurried off to get my wife and young daughter to attend midnight Mass. We would be late for this celebration of another young mother and her newborn child.
A letter explains.
Many years later, a letter tracked me down in Grande Prairie:
"Dear Mr. McDonald, you may not remember me, but I have never forgotten you or those other kind men who helped me so many Christmases ago. I was the young mother you put on the bus with my young daughter sending me back to my parents and a whole new life. . . .
"I know that I can never repay you but I want you to know what your acts of kindness did. I am happily married now, a practicing nurse, with four lovely children.
"I was so afraid that Christmas Eve. I don't know what fate placed me in your hands that evening and I shudder now to think what could have happened to my life and that of my daughter if I had not been arrested that evening.
"Thank you for the greatest Christmas gift I ever received."
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