James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.I am increasingly struck, each passing year, by how far Canada has drifted from the Judeo-Christian foundation that once anchored its public life. Nowhere is that drift more evident than at Christmas.As a boy, I remember Christmas as a tapestry of meaning. Nativity sets glowing in storefronts, carols sung with reverence, and in our home — and in the country at large — Christ was not an afterthought. He was the centrepiece. “Bon Noël” carried a melody of faith. Midnight Mass was the heart of our evening. And afterward, dear family friends from Montreal — who helped my mother through the darkest hours after my father’s tragic passing — welcomed us into a feast that, to this day, remains one of my most sacred memories. Fast-forward to today, and the determined campaign to extract Christ from Christmas — pause for a moment and consider the absurdity — is nearly complete. Many of us resist, yes. But look around. Survey the decorations, the storefronts, the concerts. There is scarcely a hint of the child whose birth reoriented the axis of human history.At my grandson’s Christmas concert — lovely, charming, heartfelt — we were treated to a parade of songs about “the night before Christmas,” Santa Claus in full command of the stage, and even a number encouraging us all to emulate Santa. Be more like Santa, they said. Well, why not be more like Jesus? Again, no complaint about the performance; it was delightful. But it was also a gentle, aching reminder of what we have let slip through our fingers..For many young Canadians, Christ is known mainly through the selective lens of modern media — rarely for who He was, but for the failings of Christians across the centuries. Yet the Christmas story, properly understood, is neither ornamental nor optional. It is the foundation of the holiday we claim to celebrate. So, allow me a moment to introduce Him — the actual reason for the season.Jesus was born in a stable — more accurately, a cave — outside Jerusalem some two thousand years ago. Our sentimental images sanitize the scene, but the real setting was harsh, poor, and entirely unbecoming of the Creator entering His creation. And that, of course, was the point. The first revelation of God in human form was humility.Two things strike the heart: first, that the infinite God compressed Himself into the frailty of a newborn; second, that He chose to enter our world in the lowest estate, under Roman occupation, in a dusty corner of the empire. Why there? Why then? Why not a palace? Why not the modern age with the internet and global networks to amplify His message?Because His very entrance was a revelation of His character. This was not a Saviour for the elite, the privileged, or the polished. This was God deliberately choosing the path of humility..Equally striking is who the news reached first. Not emperors. Not scholars. Shepherds — the midnight-shift labourers on the margins of society — received the announcement. In today’s language: the gas-station clerk, the janitor in a silent hallway, the Uber driver working through the night. The people we seldom notice. God noticed them first. Christmas has always carried that message. That was not an accident; it was a declaration. They mattered. They were seen.The first Christmas — Christ with us — carried a message that has not dimmed with time: God begins with the least of us and moves outward from there.Jesus would grow, live perfectly, love purely, and model a life that turned the world upside down. His impact is unmatched in human history — surviving empires, persecutions, mockery, and every human attempt to mute His voice. Even Saint Nicholas — yes, the seed of our modern Santa — was a Christian bishop whose generosity sprang from devotion to Christ.Christmas, then, marks the greatest distinction between Christianity and every other faith. It is not the story of what we must do to strain toward God. It is the story of what God did to reach down to us — so that relationship, redemption, and hope could be ours..To the midnight shift workers, the moms and dads juggling two jobs, the farmers and ranchers who rise before dawn, the rig crews enduring long weeks away from home, the Uber drivers spending lonely hours to make ends meet — this good news is still for you. Christmas is more than tinsel and receipts. It is the reminder of a God who came low so that the lowliest might be lifted high. A God who sees you. A God who dignifies your labour and your life. A God who calls you to meaning.This — simply and profoundly — is Christmas.Merry Christmas — to the faithful, the searching, and the not-yet-convinced. May the peace of the Child born in that humble stable rest upon you and your loved ones, and may you find, in this season, joy, meaning, and purpose once more.James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.
