“What Christmas Is,” Liahona, Dec. 2024, United States and Canada Section.
What Christmas Is
Christmas has been, and will always be, about the Father, a mother, the infant Jesus Christ, and a plan.
The Road to Bethlehem, by Joseph Brickey
If you were to ask the question, “What is Christmas?” you would surely receive several different answers. To answer that question, however, perhaps the place to begin would be to ask, “What is Christmas not?”
From a scriptural standpoint, Christmas is not evergreen trees, lights, or decorations. Christmas is not Santa Claus with his miniature reindeer or stories about Frosty the Snowman or a grinch who stole Christmas. Christmas is not office parties or December high school dances. Christmas is not college football bowl games, new holiday movies, television specials, or time off from work or school. Christmas is not sleigh bells, winter wonderlands, or the roasting of chestnuts. Christmas is not peppermint candy canes, hot chocolate, or fruitcake. It’s certainly not shopping for the latest gadgets.
These symbols, traditions, and activities have come to be associated with Christmas, but none of these things are, in fact, Christmas. And yet in our modern, commercialized society, these things have come to represent to many people what Christmas is all about.
Now, if we know what Christmas is not, we are more able to answer what Christmas is. Christmas is essentially about four realities:
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Christmas is about a Father—even our eternal Heavenly Father, who created the spirits of every human being, including our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus was the Firstborn of all our Heavenly Father’s premortal spirit children.
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Christmas is about a mother, even the blessed mortal woman Mary. She was a pure and holy virgin, whom the ancient prophet Nephi described as being “most beautiful and fair above all other virgins” (1 Nephi 11:15).
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Christmas is about the infant child Jesus. From the Father and from Mary came the birth of the most unique individual who ever walked the earth—Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father “after the manner of the flesh” (1 Nephi 11:18). From His mother, Mary, Jesus inherited mortality, and from God the Father, Jesus inherited the power of resurrection, immortality, and eternal life. Because of His dual nature, only He could bring about the fourth aspect of Christmas.
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Christmas is about a plan—God’s plan of redemption for all His children. Why did shepherds and the Wise Men seek the newborn baby Jesus? (see Matthew 2:1). Why did Simeon and Anna rejoice and prophesy about the Christ child when Joseph and Mary brought Him to the temple just a few weeks following His birth? (see Luke 2:25–38). They rejoiced because they understood that the Savior’s mortal birth meant that the Father’s plan—rescue from temporal death and redemption from the spiritual death brought about by the Fall of Adam and Eve and by our own sins—would come to pass. And it could come to pass only through this infant, who would later accomplish an infinite atonement for all people.
We can rejoice too! As President Russell M. Nelson has declared: “From [the Savior’s] example, He taught that we too can arise from the depths of our individual challenges—our sadness, weakness, and worries—to reach the heights of our own glorious potential and divine destiny. All this is possible by virtue of His mercy and grace.”
More could be added about what Christmas is—a star, a crowded inn, a manger, a wicked and jealous king, and the fulfillment of scores of Old Testament prophecies. But Christmas has been, and will always be, about the Father, a mother, the infant Jesus Christ, and a plan.