Though I repeat the Christmas story
and sing the carols, and have not love, 
I become as sounding brass -
and a tinkling cymbal.

And though I receive numerous Christmas gifts,
and understand their monetary value;
and though I believe in celebrating the
Christmas festival, and have not love,
I am nothing.

Especially at Christmas, the festival of love,
love is patient and kind;
love envies not;
love vaunteth not itself,
is not puffed up.

And though Christmas brings its temptations,
love does not behave itself unseemly,
seeks not her own,
is not easily provoked,
thinks no evil,
does not rejoice in iniquity,
but rejoices in the fact of God's love,
manifested in Christ the Lord.

The marvelous love of God,
poured out upon the world
in the babe of Bethlehem,
enables us to bear all things,
hope all things,
endure all things.

Love never fails.
But where there be holly or mistletoe,
they shall fail;
where there be tinsel and bells,
they shall cease.
For these are merely a part of our earthly
celebration of Christmas;
and when the perfect Christmas is come,
then that which is of the earth shall vanish away.

When I was a child,
I spoke of Christmas as a child;
I understood it as a child;
I thought of it as a child;
but when I became an adult,
I put away my childish, selfish ideas of Christmas.

Now we have only a glimpse
of the beauty of Christmas;
but hereafter we shall see it in all its glory.
Now I know in part the meaning
of this holy day;
but then I shall know it even as I am also known.

And now abides faith, hope and love,
these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
The true spirit of Christmas
fills all of our hearts at the anniversary
of the blessed time when Christ was born.
 

[ a paraphrase of I Corinthians 13 ]
"The War Cry, Southern Africa"