In these last days, God has spoken to us through the Son. The essence of Christmas is God deciding to assume our creaturely nature in order to dwell in our midst as one of us (cf. John 1:14). It was a decision that was prompted by the unlimited love that God has for creation (cf. John 3:16). It is out of love that creation came forth from God, and it is out of that very love that God continues to have creation abide in the God-self. No moment in history concretizes this than the day God was born as one of us. Today is thus a unique day in our life as brothers and sisters of Jesus. It is fittingly a day when our joyous chorus of thanksgiving should arise to the heavens as we acknowledge God’s goodness and love for us (and for the world). As such, as part of our Christmas celebrations over the next couple of weeks, let us reflect on the substance of Christmas. What does Christmas mean to me as a member of this faith community? What does Christmas mean to us as a family of faith?
Allow me to share with you what Christmas meant to one individual hundreds of years ago. That individual is a well-known saint to many of us. I am talking about St. Francis of Assisi. For St. Francis, Christmas was  THEfeast of all feasts. There was no feast that surpassed the day when God was born in our midst as a baby. This is because Christmas was that day when God demonstrated to us the extent of God’s love for creation. God, the creator of heaven and earth, whose abode is in heaven, and whose ways are as far from our ways as heaven is from the earth, saw it fit to come and share in our wretched, human condition. God the creator stooping low to share in the condition of a creature was the absolute show of the love with which God loves us. And Francis had some very interesting thoughts about this great feast of Christmas. In one of the accounts of the saint’s life, there is a description of an interesting interaction between St. Francis and one of his companions. The account goes thus: 
“ Francis observed the birthday of the child Jesus with inexpressible eagerness over all other feasts, saying, ‘It is the feast of feasts, on which God, having become a tiny infant, clung to human breasts.’ When the question rose about eating meat that day, since Christmas was a Friday, he [Francis] replied to Brother Morico, ‘You sin, brother, calling the day on which the child is born to us a day of fast. It is my wish that even the walls should eat meat on such a day; and if they cannot, they should be smeared with meat on the outside.’”
On Christmas, Francis wanted the poor and the hungry to be filled by the rich; he said that more than the usual amount of grain and hay should be given to oxen and asses. “‘If I could speak to the emperor, I would ask that a general law be made that all who can should scatter corn and grain along the roads so that the birds might have an abundance of food on that day of such great solemnity, especially our sisters the larks’” (2  Celano, 199–200).
In the Second Reading from the letter to the Hebrews, the author calls attention to the shift in our relationship with God that occurs with God becoming a human person. God becoming a human person breaks all the barriers that stood between God and human beings. In Jesus Christ God made man, God descends from the heavens in order to interact with us as one of us. In Jesus Christ, God assumes the human condition in its fullness - both our weaknesses and strengths, and as such is able to relate to us as one who understands our situation (Jesus lived like us in all things but sin). In Jesus Christ, all that men and women only used to hear said about God becomes concretized and made visible. If God used to be known as a loving and compassionate God, Jesus enables us to experience that in how he was ready to heal and provide for those who came to him even if it meant rubbing shoulders with the religious leaders. If God was known to be a giver of second chances, we experience that in the way Jesus forgave sinners like Zacchaeus and the repentant thief. Jesus enables us to experience God in fullness. 
We celebrate Christmas because we have experienced God made human in our lives. We celebrate Christmas because we have experienced the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ. We celebrate Christmas because we have experienced God healing us and providing for us in Jesus Christ. And as we thank God for this great feast, we are also reminded to embody the good things we have got from God and like Jesus, enable others to experience the love and goodness of God through us.