Vince Vitale [00:00:43] Merry Christmas, friends. I hope this Christmas you are filled with thankfulness and joy and childlike wonder. And I hope you get all the gifts you are wishing for. As a kid I went big on my Christmas gift lists. For several years in a row I asked Santa for a treehouse in my backyard. But Treehouse is probably underselling it. I was pretty specific. I basically wanted a full two story house up in the trees, and I wanted it way up in the biggest tree in our yard, about 100ft high. And every Christmas morning, I would sprint downstairs and go straight to the back window where I could see that tree hoping that just maybe. And I would see that tree standing tall as ever, but with no sign of a tree house. It's sad the way the wonder of Christmas fades as you get older. Each year you have more and more evidence that you are never going to get that tree house. That your biggest wishes are never going to come true. Eventually, you stop expecting great gifts and then you stop asking for them and then you stop dreaming altogether. And before long, childhood idealism turned into adolescent realism and ultimately into adult cynicism. Before you know it, you start asking for socks for Christmas. Every year more and more boring socks. 

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[00:02:16] This Christmas have you stopped asking? Have you stopped believing? Have you stopped hoping? Christmas is full of wonder. But sadly, that wonder seems to be reserved only for children. It doesn't take long before we figure out that there are certain gifts that are just too big for Santa to pull off. Within a few years, we are forced to concede that Santa doesn't even exist. And if Santa doesn't exist, then neither does the tooth Fairy, neither do soul mates, neither does Destiny, and neither does God. Or so we've been told. But what if the childlike wonder of Christmas was not naive idealism? What if it was a grasping for the true reality that we were made for? What if dreams even bigger than the ones we gave up on so long ago are in reaching distance? And what if the story of Christmas can teach us how to get there? That's what I want to explore with you today. 

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[00:03:27] Nothing killed the wonder of Christmas more than that fateful day when my friends told me Santa didn't exist. I was devastated. I felt numb. I felt this heaviness in my stomach and the vivid colors of Christmas immediately began to fade. The other kids made me feel like a baby for still believing in Santa. And so I quickly gave up that belief. I didn't want to be the odd one out. I didn't want to be laughed at. I didn't want to be a fool. But in the privacy of my own mind, something didn't seem right. Something seemed off and I began to think it through. Surely it was oversimplified to just throw out the existence of Santa and move on like nothing happened. That didn't seem rational. There had to be more to the story. There had to be more because denying Santa didn't make the evidence just disappear. And there was a lot of evidence that demanded explanation. 

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[00:04:34] If Santa didn't exist, where did all of those gifts under the tree come from year after year. Did they just materialize under the tree from nothing? Did they magically appear out of thin air? And if Santa didn't exist, how did my letters always disappear from the fireplace? Did there just happen to be a crazy gust of wind every time I turned my back? Plus, I had seen Santa plenty of times. I had frequently bumped into him at the mall and on the streets of New York City. I even had pictures with him to prove it. How irrational it would have been to just ignore all of that evidence, to just pretend it wasn't there, to just accept what my friends had told me and then turn off my brain. I couldn't do that. The evidence still demanded explanation. I had seen Santa with my own eyes and so had many others. How can I explain these multiple and multiple attested appearances of Santa? Was I and everyone else hallucinating? That seemed highly unlikely. 

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[00:05:42] Eventually, my investigations revealed that when my friends told me Santa doesn't exist, they had not been very precise with their thinking or with their words. It wasn't quite that Santa didn't exist. It was just that Santa wasn't who I thought he was. He was actually far greater than I thought. He is indeed capable of providing gifts, and he is, as suspected, responsible for the disappearance of the letters I would write and the mountain of cookies that we would leave out for him on Christmas Eve. But thankfully, he doesn't live as far away as the North Pole. And he isn't someone who only stops by once a year. The good news is that Santa is available to me all year, and he wants to know a lot more about me than merely what I want for Christmas. My friends weren't being precise. It isn't that Santa doesn't exist. He does exist. And he is the explanation for all the evidence I had observed. It's just that when Santa is fully revealed, he is also my mom and dad. 

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[00:06:59] Many of us can remember a time when someone told us God does not exist. And perhaps they made us feel foolish for believing in such a thing. Did we give up that belief because we had really thought deeply about the evidence? Or simply because we didn't want to be thought of as a baby. As with Santa, denying God does not make the evidence for God just magically disappear. And here, too, there is a lot of evidence that needs explaining. If God does not exist, where did the universe come from? How did it begin? Did it just materialize out of nothing? Magically appearing out of thin air? If God doesn't exist, why is the universe designed for life with such precision and intricacy? Did the cosmic winds just accidentally blow in exactly the right directions at exactly the right strengths? Why is our material universe subject to moral laws? When we hurt other people, why do we know that it's not okay to just claim survival of the fittest? [Inaudible] makes right. Why is the strongest law of the universe not a material law at all, but the law of love? 

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[00:08:22] A law so strong that it has the power to lead not to selfishness, but to a radical sacrifice. To the fittest. Willingly laying down his life for the unfittest. Why, if there is no God, is a baby being formed in the womb and born into the world? A miracle that so clearly transcends the sum of its chemical reactions. Why 2000 years ago were hundreds of people convinced that Jesus had appeared to them after his death that they had seen him and spent time with him? How were they so convinced of this that they were willing to die rather than deny it? And why today are millions of people in every corner of the globe so convinced that every day they spend time in God's presence that they speak to him personally and that he hears them and he answers them? Have we been too quick to give up on the existence of God? Did we do so because we had thought long and hard about the evidence, or just because we didn't want people to think badly about us? We didn't want to be seen as a fool. We didn't want to be called a baby. What if we've been too quick to deny God? 

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[00:09:45] What if it isn't that God doesn't exist? What if, in some respects, he just isn't who we thought he was? What if he's not the distant god of the deists? Not the fickle gods of the ancient Greeks, not an angry old man looking to smite us when we mess up. And what if he does not live high in the sky to be seen only when we die? What if he dwelt among us? What if he is never far from any one of us? What if he cares deeply for us? Because when he is fully revealed he is not only the Almighty creator of the universe; he is also our father. Our loving, caring, divine parent. And Christmas is a reminder that for us, because he refused to give up on us, he was willing to be laughed at and considered a fool and seen as a baby. I still believe in Santa because I didn't just believe what I was told. I followed the evidence where it led. I've also studied the existence for God at some of the best universities in the world, and I've tried to take exactly the same approach, and it has led me to a very similar conclusion. And so this Christmas, I invite you to follow the evidence where it leads and to consider reclaiming your belief in Santa and in God, too. 

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 [00:11:26] I used to think Christianity was just too crazy to believe. Christianity was the crazy explanation of the world, and science was the sober, sensible, rational explanation. That's what I thought. And nothing was more crazy about Christianity than the idea of a virgin birth. The idea that Jesus was miraculously born of a virgin. That was about as silly as believing in Santa. But a specific conversation began to change my mind about this. I was emailing back and forth with a friend of mine, a retired Princeton University professor. He was detailing some of his objections to Christianity. And then in his last line, as if to trump all other arguments, he wrote "Nor can I believe in a virgin birth." No further argument. As if to say it would be crazy to believe such a thing. And I wrestled with his email. That line kept going around and around in my head. Nor can I believe in a virgin birth. And then it dawned on me. He already does. I began to see that Christians aren't the only ones who believe in a virgin birth. In fact, everyone believes in a virgin birth, whether they realize it or not. 

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[00:13:03] Let me explain what I mean by that. Take the brilliant Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking's. Here is his attempt to propose an atheistic birth of our universe. Here's what he said. He said, "The universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing. Why the universe exists. Why we exist." Is that any less miraculous of a birth than Jesus being born of a virgin? When is the last time you saw physical matter just materialized out of nothing? That's an extraordinary claim. That is well outside the realm of the ordinary. In fact, Hawking's proposal sounds a lot like a virgin birth. Or consider the words of the prolific atheist philosopher Quentin Smith. This is a scholar with 12 books and over 150 peer reviewed articles to his name. And here is his position. He says the fact of the matter is that the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing and for nothing. We should acknowledge our foundation in nothingness and feel all at the marvelous fact that we have a chance to participate briefly in this incredible sunburst that interrupts without reason the reign of nonbeing. 

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[00:14:29] That is refreshingly honest. But again, it is not at all clear why a foundation in nothingness should be viewed as more reasonable than a foundation in God. From nothing, by nothing and for nothing. If you ask me, that definitely sounds like a virgin birth. Is there a double standard at work here? If you don't think Jesus could be virgin born, why would you think the entire universe could be virgin born? And could it be that if you deny a divine virgin birth, you're actually left having to explain not just one but multiple virgin births? If atheism is true, then something was born out of nothing. Then order was born out of chaos. Life born out of lifeless matter. Morality born out of a moral matter. The longer I thought about Virgin births, the conclusion that was confirmed for me is that we live in a miraculous world. There is simply no getting around that fact. Theist, atheist, agnostic, whatever your way of seeing the world, every person is committed to believing something absolutely extraordinary. Can I really believe in a virgin birth? Yes, I can. In fact, I don't think I have a choice in the matter. I don't think anyone has a choice in the matter. It's not a matter of whether we believe in a virgin birth. It's just a matter of which virgin birth we choose to accept. 

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[00:16:19] We can believe in the virgin birth of an atheistic universe that is indifferent to us. A universe where there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference, as Richard Dawkins has put it. Or we can believe in the virgin birth of a God who loves us so deeply that he became flesh and made his dwelling among us. He came to live beside us and to call us sons and daughters. Family and friends. The exact opposite of blind, pitiless indifference. Someone who is not blind to anything about you and yet loves you. Someone who knows you completely and yet loves you completely. Now, that is an incredible Christmas gift. 

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[00:17:15] My brother and I used to love leaving letters in the chimney to be whisked away by Santa, telling him what we wanted for Christmas. And when I was about seven years old, what I requested for Christmas written on a paper plate in my best cursive handwriting was the answer to the following question. Dear Santa and God, was God ever born? And that was one of the only Christmas requests that my parents didn't come through on. They didn't know what to do with that. I mean, who asks for that as a seven year old? My friends wanted super hero toys, and I wanted the answer to an age old philosophical dilemma. It was actually a profound question. Much more profound than I could have realized at the time. Was God ever born? Only many years later would I begin to understand that while God never began; he was born. He was born among us in the person of Jesus. But I also want to pick up on the beginning of my letter. Dear Santa and God. The fact that I addressed my letter to both Santa and God suggests that the two of them were very closely aligned in my psyche. It wasn't quite clear where one stopped and the other began, so I figured I'd cover all of my bases. 

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[00:18:45] Now, as a philosopher and an apologist, I have had many conversations about whether different religions worship the same God. Many people like the idea of different religions being basically the same, having just slightly different understandings of the same divine being. I have always found that just like two people might be hard to distinguish from afar, when seen from a great distance, the closer you get, the clearer and more significant the differences become. So what if we put a Christmas slant on that common question? Is the God of Christianity and the God of Christmas the same? Are Father God and Father Christmas fundamentally alike? Basically the same person in different seasonal attire? Sandals for summer and a big red hat for winter. When we view them from afar, I can see how Santa and God could seem to many people to be one and the same. Here's how it could work. Both have supernatural powers. Both live far away. Santa is far away in the North Pole. God is even farther away on some distant heavenly throne. We write letters to Santa asking him for what we want for Christmas. Many of us write in our journals to God, expressing to him what we want or need in life. 

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[00:20:22] We get to be in Santa presents once a year, but he's elusive. We never quite get to see him. He's always in too big of a rush to stop and say hello. And likewise, once in a while, there is that sense in life of something more, of something transcendent, of God being around somehow, somewhere. But he seems hidden. He can't be seen and he can't be touched. Both Santa and God are concerned with whether we are naughty or nice. Both are watching how we live and they are keeping a list and they're going to either reward us or punish us. The only difference is that Santa makes his judgments annually; whereas, God makes his eternally. For many people, that's how it looks. When viewed from a distance, Santa and God look a lot alike. And that's how it used to look to me. It was only years later as a skeptical college student, when I was challenged by soccer teammates of mine to read the bible for the first time. When I was challenged not to view God from afar, but to draw near and take a closer look that I began to see the decisive differences between Santa and God. 

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[00:21:42] For starters, only one is confirmed by evidence. That's why people don't start believing in Santa as adults. And yet many adults like myself become fully persuaded of the reality of God. And the closer you get, the more the differences begin to pile up. Santa lives as far away as you can get. But the Bible says that God is never far from any one of us. That He is Emmanuel, God with us. And that when we put our trust in him, he comes even closer. He even comes to dwell within us. Santa keeps a list of our wrongs. God says that as far as the east is from the West, that is how far He will remove our wrongs from us. And the Bible explicitly says that love keeps no record of wrongs. Santa only gives gifts if we deserve them. If we've done enough throughout the year to earn them. God gave us the greatest gift. The gift of reconciliation and of peace, even though we are completely undeserving. We could never earn such an extravagant gift. But it is freely offered. Santa is not about relationship. None of us ever thought as kids, I really hope this year I deepen my friendship with Santa. No. We thought I hope Santa gives me cooler stuff this year. 

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[00:23:11] Our interaction with Santa was transactional, basically an early version of Amazon Prime. We order stuff from him and then it magically appears at our address anywhere in the world with no one in sight. But what God desires with us is not transactional. He is all about relationship. His most fundamental desire is not for us to be good. It is more simply for us as people, as children, as friends. His primary interest is not in your achievements. It is simply in you. And he desires for us to truly know him, to spend real, tangible time with him, not just once a year, but every day. And for our relationship with him to be so valuable, for it to be such a treasure to us that by comparison any and every material gift under the tree will seem trivial. There is a beautiful line in the Gospel of Luke. It's in chapter 1: 78-79, and it reads, "Because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace.". 

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[00:24:41] It's an image of the tenderness and peacefulness of a sunrise. And it's speaking of Jesus. The closer we look, the more we find that the differences between Santa and God are not just superficial; they are deep divergences in character. Jesus, the rising sun comes to shine and to be seen. Santa waits until the sun sets so that when he comes, he won't be seen. Santa comes to us once a year. Jesus will never leave us or forsake us. He is our ever present guide. Santa comes to give coal to those living in the darkness of disobedience. Jesus came not to condemn, but to save. Coal, a symbol of coldness and death. Jesus, the warmth of sunlight on shadowed faces and the spark of life to stagnant souls. To someone willing to admit that there is darkness in his heart, the contrast between coal and tender mercy could not be starker. Even if you have a good enough year to receive Santas gifts rather than coal, what about next year? What about the year after that? We talk about Christmas gifts, but really Santa's sack is filled not with gifts but with rewards. And by the time the 1st of January hits, the fleeting pleasure of reward fades. And once again, anxiety over next year's judgment begins to build. 

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[00:26:29] Much like Santa and God, rewards and gifts are frequently mistaken for one another. But there is a world of difference between a reward and a gift. Measurements yield rewards, but also the crippling concern that one day we won't measure up. Mercy overflows with gifts, and only a gift can guide our feet into the path of peace. Santa came with carefully measured rewards. Jesus came with immeasurable gifts of reconciliation and redemption. The presence of Santa, as exciting as they are, can never compare with the presence of God. Let me ask you a question. If you were given a choice, would you prefer a gift or a reward of the same value? Both worth exactly the same and you can have either, but one is a reward that you earned, the other is an unearned gift from someone else. Your answer to that question reveals which you value more. Success or relationship. The trophy of success or the generosity of relationship. 

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[00:27:50] Sadly, for many of us, we spend our years competing for success rather than resting in relationships. Choosing temporary rewards of finite value over a permanent gift of infinite value. This Christmas will we hope that we have been good enough to receive our reward? Or will we celebrate that Jesus has been good enough to give us a gift? The difference between Santa and God was never more important to me than when I sat at the deathbed of my best friend's father. The doctors had given him only weeks left to live, and he began to share with me that although he had always been confident that God exists in some way, he was finding himself increasingly scared about what comes next. And as we spoke, what became clear to me was that his understanding of the central message of Christianity of what it takes to be right with God was almost identical to the story of Santa. You should try to do more nice things than naughty things in your life and then just hope that in the end, your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds. If they do, something wonderful awaits. But if they don't, you're in trouble. 

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[00:29:08] And as my friend's father reflected back over his life, he recognized that if that was the case then he had reason to fear. Never was I so incredibly thankful to be sitting before someone as a Christian. As an atheist, I would have had to say that there is no hope beyond the grave If I adhered to almost any other religion, I would have had to tell my friend's father that he was basically right. It was a matter of whether he had been good enough. And because he was now too late to rebalance the scales, he had every reason to fear what was next. If God was just a souped up version of Santa, then again I would have had nothing to say. Then God would have looked at his list and he would have checked it twice and there my friend's father's name would have been on the wrong side of that list. I was so thankful to be sitting there as a Christian because as a Christian I was able to explain to my friend's father that while Christianity does say that God wants us to do good, that is not ultimately what makes us right with him. 

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[00:30:22] I was able to share with him that the message of Christianity is that what makes us right with God is not about anything we do or ever could do, but rather about what Jesus has already done once and in full and for all. I explained that if we trust in Jesus, we no longer need to fear judgment. Because when He died, Jesus already took the judgment for everything we have ever done wrong. He couldn't bear for us to carry that burden. And so he carried it for us. I explained all of this at great length, and when I asked my friend's dad if this made sense, he turned to me and responded, "That's a heck of a realization." He said, "Sixty nine years and I never thought of that. I thought Christianity was one thing, but it was something else entirely." There was an extended pause. And then he said, "You know, Vince, you spend your whole life trying to make up for your mess ups, but this finally explains how we can deal with guilt." I asked him if he wanted to pray with me to accept this gift from God. He said that he did. And with great conviction, he thrust out his arm to me and we clasped hands and we wept and we prayed. And as we finished praying, he exclaimed aloud amen. 

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[00:31:51] Then he asked me if my wife Jo knows this great truth about Jesus as well. I said that she does. And he responded, "It must be a happy life." And then after a thoughtful pause, he said, "Now I'm actually looking forward to what's next." Only Jesus Christ can transform a life like that. And so this Christmas, let's celebrate him. If we're not careful, Santa can so often turn into a celebration of ourselves. Look at all this stuff I got from Santa. Look at all of these trophies that tell you how great I am. All too often, Santa's Christmas is a celebration of us. God's Christmas is a celebration of Jesus. Not look what I have done and what I deserve, but look at what Jesus has done even though I was completely undeserving. Not look how great I am, but look how great Jesus is. Not all Christmas cards are the same. But it's only when we get closer, it's only when we draw near that we can begin to see the differences clearly. So in the days ahead, let's draw near to God and let's ask the question, who are we celebrating this Christmas? 

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[00:33:21] As a child, I used to ask for lots of typical things for Christmas. But as I was writing out my list to be placed in the fireplace and whisked away by Santa, I would always include at least one ridiculous item. Something truly audaciously extravagant. Something beyond my wildest dreams just in case the wonder of Christmas was real. Something so big that the only possible way I could possibly get it is if Santa really did have superpowers. I'd asked for something like my very own flying reindeer. I mean, why not? Santa has more than enough. Surely he could spare one and I'd be happy to [inaudible] back to help with the Christmas deliveries each year. Clearly a completely reasonable request. But that flying reindeer, those super gifts, they never showed up on Christmas morning. And pretty quickly, I grew up and got less naive and realized that it was silly to ask for things that big. I think that's a sad story. And I don't think that is the real Christmas story. 

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[00:34:35] I think the real Christmas story is that in some respects, we were never supposed to grow up. We were supposed to cling to that childlike wonder. Even now, we're supposed to approach God as children with childlike dreams and great audacious expectations. What if, could it be that the real Christmas story is not that our asks have been too big, but rather that they have been too small? The most we can imagine being given whether by Santa or by God or by anyone else for that matter is a material gift. Socks or a sweater or maybe even a bike waiting for us under the tree. But whatever we get, Santa is nowhere in sight. He dropped off a material gift when no one was around. And then off he went. Let's remember that that is not the original Christmas story. The original Christmas story, the story of Jesus being born is not that we received a gift from God, but rather that we received the gift of God himself. And that was not a gift that God could just drop off and be on his way. No, he was the gift. And so he stayed. He was present with us. And in the person of Jesus, he lived a fully human life. 

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[00:36:04] That is a deep mystery, but it opens up incredible possibilities in terms of who God can be to us. The possibility of God being not only our creator, but also our family and our friend. There is a problem with the idea of God being family to us. God is so big and we are so small. We are two very different types of being. The metaphysical size gap between God and us is just too great for us to be family. God being family with us would be like me being family with the deer that wandered through my backyard. I like the deer. I appreciate the deer, but they can't be family with me. They are two different from me. There's no substantial interaction between us. I enjoy watching them from afar, but we could never connect deeply. We can never sit and eat at the same table. Our lives they're lived on different planes. But what if God did sit and eat with us at our table? What if he laughed just like us and wept just like us? What if in the human person of Jesus, God came and died among us? Because living a fully human life which includes suffering a human death was the only way to live life on our plane. Was the only way for us to share a family name. Christ and Christian. 

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[00:37:42] Jesus came so we could be family with God. He also came, I think, to be our friend. People say you know who your friends are when you go through the worst because then you have a chance to see who is willing to go through it with you. Friends don't go running when things get tough. They stick by each other. They go through the worst together, side by side. God didn't have to go through anything with us. He could have just enjoyed the view from his heavenly VIP seats. Perfectly comfortable, lacking nothing, no need to get anywhere near the mess happening down below. Instead, Isaiah describes Jesus as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And when you begin to list out all that Jesus was willing to go through with us and for us, it is an unfathomable list. Moving from his heavenly mansion to a war torn foreign land. Trading riches for poverty. Having powerful people tried to kill him. Fleeing persecution as a refugee. Having his family think he was out of his mind. Made fun of, constantly. Rejected by his own people. Deserted by his closest friends. Experiencing such anguish that his sweat blood. 

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[00:39:12] Convicted of a crime he did not commit. Sentenced to death. Brutally tortured. Stripped naked and made to be a public spectacle. His enemies gloating over his suffering. Hanging out a cross with his mother watching. If that is what it took to be someone's friend, where would you draw the line and say anything under this line I am not willing to go through? Friendship with you would not be worth it. It would be a cost too severe to be paid. Jesus did not draw a line. He went through all of that for the sake of relationship with us. When it takes a lot to be your friend, that's when you find out who your friends really are. In coming to live the life that he lived, Jesus showed us that he is really and truly our friend. And that his friendship can be trusted above all. Jesus came to make out our family. Jesus came to make out our friend. And lastly, Jesus came to be our wonderful counselor. For to us, a child is born, to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called a wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. 

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[00:40:49] A story that I heard recently made me reflect on what it means to be a wonderful counselor. A friend of mine who's a counselor and a clinical therapist told me about a young woman who came to him with a long history of cutting herself. At the end of their first session, she said, well, there's just one more thing before I can decide if I can trust whether you can work with me or not. Then she rolled up her sleeves and she said, "Will you touch my scars?" My friend asked why that was important to her. And she said, "That's the only way I'll really know if you care about me. If you are willing to cross the divide, to touch my scars and my wounds." As my friend put it, she needed to know will you viscerally descend into the darkness with me? Are you willing to reach out and be identified with my brokenness? Are you willing to reach out and put your being into mine? Through their counseling, my friend had the privilege of sharing with her that there is one person who literally was willing to put his being into ours, who was willing to be identified with our brokenness, who was willing to reach out and touch her scars. 

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[00:42:23] And Jesus went even further. Not only was he willing to touch her scars, but he was willing to be scarred for her. And then he invited her to reach out and touch his scars. When Thomas doubted and said he needed to touch Jesus's scars, Jesus responded, put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out your hand. Put it into my side. The reason I believe that we can trust Jesus with our scars is because he trusted us with his scars. That young woman who rolled up her sleeves eventually did put her trust in God. And when she did, she spoke these stunning words. She said, "I know now that my scars likely will not disappear, but I have hope that one day they will bear the glory of the one who was scarred for me." Every one of us has scars. Do we have a wonderful counselor? Do we have someone who loved us so much that he was willing to reach out and touch our scars and even to be scarred for us? Will we one day bare the glory of the one who was scarred for us? That is the ultimate Christmas question. 

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[00:43:41] And so this Christmas, don't just ask Santa for something, ask God for something you want. Ask God for himself. Ask God to be family and a friend and a wonderful counselor. May that be the super gift that you receive this Christmas. And as a result, this Christmas and every Christmas that follows, may you know childlike wonder, true joy and everlasting peace. Merry Christmas and God bless you! 

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