I’ll Be Home for Christmas
2025 First Presidency’s Christmas Devotional
Sunday, December 7, 2025
Years ago—now many years ago—I was a young father wanting to help my lovely wife prepare for the arrival of our firstborn, a son. I was nervous to the point of frenzy. Pat said once that when the signs of delivery finally started, I grabbed the pillow I had been sleeping on and headed toward the door, leaving her behind without any sign of the shirt or trousers for which I should have traded my pajamas.
It might have been her magnetic personality that kept me from getting to the door. Who knows? Maybe her loving safety kept that baby warm and comfortable in his little home for several hours yet.
In any case, Christmas is the one day in the year we would most like to be at home. One of the most popular Christmas songs of the season is “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” And if we are not able to be there, we get a little lump in our throat even if we are grown and gone from the toys and tinsel of our childhood.
We might note as we speak that there are nearly 85,000 missionaries serving somewhere in the world, usually not at all close to home.
Most students studying away from home will arrange to get back at Christmas but not all will, perhaps because some were not able to afford the trip.
There are many going to tragic wars around the globe that it is hard to estimate how many of those service personnel will be away from home this Christmas. But it will number in the hundreds of thousands.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph knew what it was like to be alone, away from home, on this special night; two millennia later, we still sing, “His shelter was a stable, And his cradle was a stall; With the poor, and mean, and lowly, Lived on earth our Savior holy.”
Just a few short years later that baby would be without company again, declaring that He had “trodden the wine-press alone, … and none were with [Him],” fearing in the depths of His suffering that He had been abandoned entirely, even by His Father in Heaven, but understanding of that matter came later, turning Christmas night into one of joy and promises, a night of angels, and stars and salvation, a night for being with loved ones, if we are able.
This Christmas, may I invite each of you to be, however briefly, a family for someone who is otherwise alone. Loneliness is a terribly painful feeling. I know that many have been lonelier than I, but these past three Christmases have been very painful for me without the companionship of that perfect mother I spoke of earlier.
There has been, however, something redemptive happening to me in this period. It has been a time for more reflection, for more humility, and for showing more appreciation. Perhaps this Christmas we can bless the life of someone who is still temporarily alone in a manner that makes them feel for a moment or for a meal or for an afternoon that they have been able to make it home for Christmas.
Of the several times that I have been away from home at Christmas, like President Farnes, I believe the first was that sometimes lonely and always most rewarding service as a full-time missionary.
Here is one such note of reflection and tenderness from another, revealing a very mature kind of longing. It is the letter we all wish we had written more than once.
“Dear Dad. This is the first time in all my life that I have not been home for Christmas. [I am] sitting before a boarding house fire … watching the flames go up the chimney, [carrying] memories of other Christmas days. There is the morning when, pajama-clad, we hurried downstairs. [Then with such excitement, we] ran back upstairs … to show [you] all of our [gifts of apples and oranges and homemade candy]. You and mother [seemed very tired for some reason], but you played with us and kissed us before sending us back to bed before daylight. During the day you pulled us up and down the street on [the] new sled [we had not discovered earlier], and we knew you were the biggest, strongest man in all the world. … Last night I missed the thrill of [seeing] Santa Claus [come. He did] not come this morning [either]. I miss you[, Dad. But with this new] distance between us, I begin to see in your life the [true] spirit of Christmas. … God bless you, Dad, and keep you ever wonderful to me. Love, Gordon.” Our own Gordon Bitner Hinckley.
Merry Christmas from our Father in Heaven, who never flags nor fails, and from His Only Begotten Son, His baby—this baby and our Brother—who grew up to “[bear] our griefs, [carry] our sorrows: [and be] bruised for our iniquities.” We thank our Father in Heaven for the promised Messiah, the greatest gift of all at Christmas. In His name, even Jesus Christ, amen.