Merry Christmas!

The following links are to articles that explore the true meaning of Christmas. With all the hustle and bustle, it's good to have a reminder. "Let every heart prepare him room / and heaven and nature sing." After these links is a Christmas poem by G. K. Chesterton.

Let us all make room for the birth of Christ!

Pax Christi,
phatcatholic
Articles

• Explore the Christmas Season
• About Christmas
• 12 Days of Christmas
• Prayers, Blessings, and Hymns
• Activities and Customs


• USCCB: Christmas Season
• Liturgical Calendar: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
• Reflections of the Meaning and Lesson of Christmas
• Celebrating Christmas: With the Accent on Christ
• Seeing Clearly
• Introduction to the Christmas Eve Prayers from the Roman Martyrology
• The Christmas Tree: Legends, Traditions, History
• The Traditions of the Christmas Manger
• Pius XII's Christmas Radio Message
• Christmas Statement by Jerusalem Patriarch
• Making Christmas Come Alive
• The War Against the Light
• Benedict XVI Urges Rediscovery of Christmas Traditions
• C.S. Lewis on "Xmas" and "Christmas"
• Divine Revelation and Myth
• Bah Humbug
• Bring Back the Creche!
• The "X-mas" Files
• Hollywood Knows Him Not: Christmas Movies You Want to See
• Children's Literature for Christmas
• The Meaning of Christmas: Look Deeper
• The Holy Year Door
• Christmas Candles
• Silent Night
• The First Christmas
• St. Francis and the Christmas Creche
• The Tree of the Christ Child
• Are Christmas Decorations Pagan?
• The Peace of Christmas
• Christmas Eve with the Pope
• The Gift of Christmas
• Amid Roars of Happy Christmas Laughter
• Christmas Sacred and Secular
• The Real War on Christmas
• The Nativity Story
• Bringing Christmas to Life Again
• The Original Christmas Story
• A Hint for Next Christmas
• Breath of Heaven at Christmas Time
• Christmas in a Barn
• Is God Against Christmas?
• Night Before Christmas
• Oh Marvelous Exchange!
• Some Thoughts on the Star of Bethlehem
• Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross
• The Family for Families
• True Christmas Spirit
• New Advent: Christmas
• Is Christmas a Pagan Feast?
• Santa or Satan?: A Reply to a Funny Fundamentalist
• Books that Celebrate the True Gift of Christmas
• 7 Good Reasons to Send Christmas Cards
• A Different Kind of Christmas List
• An Augustine Christmas: 10 Comments on the Incarnation of Christ
• The Apologetics of Christmas: Part 1 and Part 2
• Are You Lying to Your Children about Santa?
• Dec. 25: The Biblical Argument for the Birth of Christ in Late December (Answering Common Objections)
• Calculating Christmas
• In Defense of the Christmas Tree
• The Scandal of the Babe-God
• What Is the Nativity?
• Theosis: The Reason for the Season
• The Twenty-Plus Days of Christmas?
• Still Christmas: Advent and Christmas Family Traditions
• Still Christmas: Christmas Viewing (Good and Bad!)
• The Perennial Santa Question
• How to Understand the Christmas Proclamation
• 9 Things You Need to Know about Christmas
• Those (Besides Kids) Who Love Christmas for Completely Selfish Reasons
• Blessed Are the Uncertain
• How to Write a Family Christmas Letter

A Christmas Poem
by G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost---how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wife's tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.