Christmas

There are three main qualifications I have as an amateur Road to Bethlehem actor: I am tall, I am prepared to wear a funny hat in public and I have committed to making myself available to do it each year for a week in December over the past 10 years.

"This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12).

The holidays are a time of generosity, when those forgotten by the world meet those who want to forget that sadness exists and, out of the coexistence of the two needs, something good is born.

In writing this article, I asked a handful of people what the worst thing they had ever received for Christmas was. The answers I received were interesting, to say the least.

Doing things the way you've always done them is the most convenient choice. I realized this on the eve of my birthday, when it became clear to me that snowballing into the same pattern of celebrations begins to gradually, but surely, lose its flavour.

The nativity of Jesus gives meaning and hope to all the stories about us and the world in which we live. In the bundle of narratives that have ever been imagined and told, it remains "the most beautiful story in the world."

No leader has ever inspired mankind to a greater extent than the baby born in Bethlehem, the one who divided history. No other personality in the world has left such a mark on such a large number of fields as Jesus did. And the legacy He left in terms of human rights (especially women's rights), education, attitudes towards children, humility, and forgiveness is...