Christmas message: Bishop Patrick Dunn, Catholic Bishop of Auckland

Every Christmas is special. Whether we spend it with excited children, with old friends, or even alone, we can all enjoy the buzz in the streets, the carols in the malls and the sparkling lights at night.

Christmas also has its risks. Some people go over the top and spend too much or eat too much, and others become exhausted or depressed and feel alienated from their families.

But at its heart, Christmas is really about the central event in the history of the planet: the birthday of Jesus Christ. He claimed to be the unique Son of God and in this regard different from any other person.

There is always the danger that Jesus will be displaced by all the razzmatazz that now surrounds his birth - a bit like the shop assistant who explained that the Bibles and religious books had been placed on the bottom shelf "to make room for all the Christmas stuff". Every Christmas gives us the opportunity to wonder again about Jesus Christ.

For Dostoevsky, there was "no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus".

C.S. Lewis, who wrote the Narnia stories, once commented with regard to Jesus: "Let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us ... It seems obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form."

Do have a wonderful Christmas. And perhaps also a thoughtful one.