Features

Christmas was always special in the D’Cruz family — that tends to happen when there are 12 kids — but through the decades they have never let the secular overtake the religious in celebrating the season.

Over the past 24 years, Carol Howes has seen a lot of teens face Christmas alone in a shelter, wondering where they belong and whether they have a future.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Brothers Peter and Eli Hosh grew up knowing that their hometown was not only the place where they went to school and ran down to the corner market for their mother, but the town where Jesus was born.

BURLINGTON, Ont. -- Before Joanna Baumgartner showed up, some children in the Amor et Gratia (Love and Grace) school in Ouanaminthe, Haiti had to make their own fun. An empty motor oil can tied to a string served as a toy car. 

It was a leap of faith for the Diocese of Hamilton.

HAMILTON, Ont. -- At 9 a.m. Sunday morning, Dec. 15, Jen Edmonds was one of 800 volunteers contributing to the complex task of welcoming over 2,000 people to the Hamilton Convention Centre for a formal, sit-down Christmas dinner, a visit with Santa, gifts for every child, coats and mittens for those who need them. 

EDMONTON -- A new Nativity scene at Edmonton City Hall has taken the centuries-old Christmas tradition into the realm of computer-generated virtual reality.

When The Catholic Register launched its annual children’s Christmas contest in 2011 there was some concern about receiving enough entries to make it a real competition. Nine contests and thousands of entries later, it’s obvious those worries were unfounded.

It’s amazing how far a small, one-off special creche exhibit has come over the past two decades at St. James Cathedral in downtown Toronto.

A vicious circle of disasters and unresolved injustices are feeding one another and starving the citizens of Haiti. But the crisis is widely unknown.