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TORONTO – September isn’t just the start of another school year.

Every December, a package from the Holy Land arrives on Hikmat DandanöÏÓãÊÓƵapp doorstep. Inside are 65 hand-drawn Christmas cards in different shapes, sizes and colours.

ThereöÏÓãÊÓƵapp no better way to get ready for Christmas than to open your ears to a little Advent music — not the jingles in the mall but music that slows time down just enough to allow for some peace and reflection.

VATICAN CITY - Christmas is a reminder that through the birth of Christ, hope and peace are possible and that only through his grace can humanity find peaceful solutions to the world's most difficult problems, Pope Francis said.

December means curtains up for church Christmas pageants, hand-bell concerts, caroling kiddie choirs and Nativity displays on the front lawns.

Christmas practices are developed and celebrated in different ways in families, and certain tasks and jobs become traditions. So how did it happen that growing up in my large family I became the one to go out into the forest and get the annual Christmas tree?

It will be a sadder Christmas for Rick Campanelli and his family this year as they celebrate their first Christmas without family matriarch Antoinette, who passed away over the summer. Antoinette was the heart of the Campanelli family holidays. She prepared everything from the gifts to decorating the family home in Hamilton, Ont., and, of course, cooked Christmas brunch and dinner. The whole family rallied around AntoinetteöÏÓãÊÓƵapp love for Christmas.

My hands are covered in flour and my mom is wrist deep in dough. The oven is preheated and the cookie trays are lined with parchment paper. She asks me to choose the cookie cutter for this year, and I select the angel.

TORONTO - On a wet and windy early December night the leadership team from Holy Spirit Catholic School set out with a group of 27 students from the northeast Toronto school to carol in the surrounding neighbourhood.

TORONTO - To curb the commercialization of Christmas, Alice Chan has made a tradition of volunteering with her two sons over the Christmas holidays.