CLEVELAND -- A once-every-two-decade conjunction involving the solar system’s two gas giants will give earthbound observers a look at a so-called “Christmas Star” on the winter solstice.

A spruce tree donated by a retired Catholic teacher is helping to make Christmas in Kenora in northern Ontario a little merrier.

JERUSALEM -- Walk down St. Peter Street from the Old City’s New Gate, past some shuttered shops and the closed Knight’s Palace hotel, continue down through the winding stone-paved alleyway of the Christian Quarter and soon you will hit “Santa Lane.”

The students from Sudbury, Ont.’s Marymount Academy have let Canadian military serving overseas that they aren’t forgotten this Christmas season.

By Christmas Eve the Advent wreath is aglow with the candles of love, hope, joy and peace, and we await the lighting of the White Candle which signifies the coming of Jesus into our world and into our lives. We pray again that this presence will become a reality which we can sense and touch, but for many it becomes an elusive dream that vanishes when they awaken from their restless sleep.

Already vulnerable and alone, many homeless and at risk youth are finding themselves dealing with more than the coronavirus and its restrictions this Christmas. To them, loneliness is another pandemic.

Isn’t it fascinating how, back in spring 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the first impulse for comfort and familiarity was an urge to watch Christmas shows? The goodwill and good feels of Christmastime pageantry is powerful medicine.

A diocese of immigrants will be using Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz’s acclaimed Angels Unawares as its Nativity this year.

COVID-19 Christmas ornaments are flying off the shelves in Ottawa this holiday season.