Let the Christmas season begin

"Every mother who, profoundly feeling what she has done in bearing a human being, knows...that the Spirit of the church, the Holy Spirit, dwells within her....Such a woman also sees Christ in her child - and this is that inexpressible feeling a mother has which compensates for all else.  And in like manner each one of us beholds in the birth of Christ his own higher birth whereby nothing lives in him but devotion and love; and in him too the eternal Son of God appears....And this is the very glory of the festival, which you wished also to hear me praise."

Friedrich Schleiermacher, Christmas Eve