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Dear Friends,
The photo above is hardly an iconic Christmas image of the kind that we might be expected to include with our Christmas Greeting. I chose it for purely personal reasons, but not without feeling that you, too, might see in it a reminder of the joy of the season.
The photograph is of my daughter Aņa (now the mother of two herself). I took this picture as Aņa opened a Christmas present, a doll with which she was obviously delighted. Today, as when I first took it, the photo seems to capture the joy we are encouraged to feel at the birth of the Christ Child.
It might seem odd to some to associate a child's glee at receiving a longed-for Christmas gift with the deeper meaning of Christmas, but Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation which broke down the wall separating the sacred from the profane, making the ordinary transparent to the mystery of God's love.
We never know when our mundane routine will be interrupted by something rich in meaning. If, for example, we are at the mall busily rushing around doing our Christmas shopping, might not something really moving surprise us and remind us of what Christmas is all about? Click on Aņa's picture above to see a short video that might remind you, as it did me, of the meaning of Christmas.
I want to especially thank those who responded so generously to our recent annual funding appeal. We are sincerely grateful. We will strive as always to live up to the trust you place in us by supporting our work. (For tax purposes, early in the new year our donors will receive a formal acknowledgement of their tax-deductible donation.) On behalf of Randy Coleman-Riese and myself, I wish you a blessed and joyful Christmas, 
Gil Bailie  
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