In the 2025 First Presidency Christmas Devotional, President Jeffrey R. Holland said, “Christmas is the day of the year that we most want to spend at home.”
Still, he compassionately pointed out that many who will not be going home this Christmas – nearly 85,000 missionaries – are serving in far-flung locations rather than typically close to home. Students who cannot afford to return home. Hundreds of thousands of military personnel go to war around the world.
In a prerecorded broadcast Sunday, Dec. 7, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles addressed listeners with a holiday appeal, keeping in mind those who may feel abandoned this month. “This Christmas, I pray that each of you, even if only for a short time, will be part of the family of someone who is alone.”
Invitation to congratulate one person on Christmas
One of the popular Christmas songs this time of year is “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” President Holland said. “Not being able to go to Christmas at Christmas leaves a little lump in your throat, even if you’ve grown up and grown away from the toys and tinsel of your childhood.”
Even 2000 years ago, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph knew what it was like to be away from home and alone on this special night.
“Loneliness is a very painful feeling,” he says. Sister Patricia Holland, who passed away in July 2023, said: “I know many people have been lonelier than I was, but these past three Christmases without the perfect maternal companion have been extremely painful for me.”
However, he also observed that “something redeeming happened to me during this period.” He said it was a time for reflection, to be more humble and to be more grateful.
“Perhaps this Christmas we can celebrate the lives of those who are still temporarily isolated in a way that makes them feel like they can come home for Christmas, even if it’s just for a moment, over a meal or an afternoon.”
A humble setting representing the life of the Savior
President Holland described the humble circumstances of the first Nativity, quoting the hymn “Once upon a time in the city of Royal David,” and said, “His refuge was a stable, and his cradle was a stable. Among the poor, the lowly, and the lowly, our holy Savior dwelt on earth.”
He added, “Just a few years later, the baby became orphaned again, declaring that he had “trodden the winepress all alone,” declaring that no one was with him (Isaiah 63:3), and in the depths of his suffering, fearing that he had been completely abandoned by his Heavenly Father.”
President Holland said that understanding of this suffering came later and “turned Christmas night into a night of joy and promise, a night of angels and stars and salvation, a night of hopefully being with loved ones.”
In his April 2009 general conference talk, “No One Was With Him,” President Holland detailed the “difficult moment of this lonely journey to redemption,” the loneliness Christ felt in his final moments of mortality (see Matthew 27:46).
“But Jesus endured,” he said then. “He pressed on. The goodness within him allowed faith to triumph even in a state of utter suffering. The trust in which he lived told him that despite his feelings, God’s mercy was never lacking, that God was always faithful, that God would never run away or forsake us.”
President Holland added in 2009, “Jesus walked such a long and lonely road so completely alone that we don’t have to.”
“Christmas’s greatest gift”
President Holland concluded Sunday’s address by praising the sometimes lonely but rewarding service of missionaries and reading a Christmas letter of reflection and kindness from one of his former missionaries, the late Church President Gordon B. Hinckley.
The letter read, “Dear Dad, this is the first time in my life that I didn’t come home for Christmas.” “Dad, I miss you so much, but with this new distance between us, I’m starting to see the true spirit of Christmas in your life. Dad, God bless you and may you continue to be wonderful to me.”
President Holland left his audience with the blessings of the season and a witness to the blessings they will remember during this season.
“We thank our Heavenly Father for the greatest gift of Christmas: the Promised Messiah.”
