Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and leaders of the Church through the years have testified of the divine birth and the need to emulate the Savior.
Some of their comments are:
"The so-called scholars seek to convince us that the divine birth of Christ as proclaimed in the New Testament was not divine at all and that Mary was not a virgin at the time of Jesus' conception. They would have us believe that Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus, was His physical father, and that therefore Jesus was human in all attributes and characteristics. They appear generous in their praise of Him when they say that He was a great moral philosopher, perhaps even the greatest. But the import of their effort is to repudiate the divine sonship of Jesus, for on that doctrine rests all other claims of Christianity."
- President Ezra Taft Benson
Come unto Christ, pp. 3-4
"Christmas comes once a year to reveal to us the beautiful and near approach man can make to the divine, to the ideal, to the Christlike life."
- President Spencer W. Kimball
The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 247
"Christmas is a fitting time to renew our desires and to strengthen our determination to do all that lies within our power to make real among men the message heralded by the angels when the Savior was born. Let us glorify God by seeking the good, the true, the beautiful! Let us strive to establish peace on earth by exercising that same good will toward one another which God has shown toward us!"
- President David O. McKay
Gospel Ideals, p. 36
"I attended a conference in Canada once and it so happened that I referred in my remarks during the evening to our faith in the divine mission of Jesus Christ, that we believed that the Lord prepared the way for the coming of Jesus of Nazareth; prepared Mary to be His mother and Joseph to act as His earthly father."
- President George Albert Smith
Conference Report, October 1950
"When the time came that His first-born, the Savior, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came Himself and favored that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. The Savior was begotten by the Father and His spirit by the same Being who is the Father of our spirits . . . ."
- President Brigham Young
Discourse in Tabernacle, Feb. 8, 1857
"In the Old Testament the birth of the Master was foretold in the Book of Isaiah: `Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.' (Isaiah 7:14.) And in the Book of Micah, we are told He would be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2.)
"Thus the ancient prophets testified of His divine birth and mission, and the New Testament confirms the happenings foretold by these Old Testament prophets and bears witness of that virgin birth and divine mission of the Savior."
- Elder Howard W. Hunter
Conference Report, October 1968
"Isaiah gave the first sign when he said: `Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).'
"And did it not come to pass just as the prophet said?
"Was not this virgin birth heralded among the shepherds who watched their flocks that night and by the angelic hosts who sang their hosannahs? Did not even the wise men far away in the East recognize it? And was not Herod so frightened by it that he killed the little children in an effort to destroy the newborn King?"
- Elder Mark E. Petersen
Conference Report, October 1965