Christmas has a very particular meaning in the interior structure of Christian faith. We do not celebrate it as we otherwise do the birthdays of great men, because our relationship to Christ is very different from the honor we show great men. What is of interest in them is their work: the thoughts they thought and wrote, the works of art they created, and the mechanisms they left behind. . .But Christ counts for us not only through his work, through what he did, but also through what he was and what he is in the entirety of his person. He counts for us differently from any other man because he is not merely man. He counts because in him, earth and heaven touch, and thus in him, God for us is tangible as man.

– Pope Benedict XVI