Pope Benedict XVI today said he hoped the global credit crunch would lead people to rediscover the real meaning of Christmas and free it from "the accumulations of consumerism".

Speaking at his weekly audience, with a Christmas tree beside him on the stage, the Pope said the festival of Christ's birth was "an opportunity to welcome the message of hope" which it brought "as a personal gift".

He said the difficulties many families were experiencing as a result of the global economic crisis "can become an opportunity and a stimulus" to free Christmas from consumerism, which had reduce Christmas to "an occasion for the sole purpose of buying and exchanging gifts".

"Perhaps the world crisis that is affecting so many families and all of humanity could be the stimulus for rediscovering the warmth, simplicity, amity and solidarity which are the very values of Christmas" the Pope said. "Stripped of its materialistic and consumer trappings, Christmas offers a chance to welcome as a personal gift the message of hope that emanates from the mystery of Christ's birth". As he spoke the mountain pipers who come into Rome at Christmas time, known as "zampognari", played traditional Italian Christmas carols.

"May Christmas be a privileged opportunity to reflect on the true meaning of our existence. Let us ready ourselves to receive this gift of joy, of light and of peace and become people who do not think only of themselves, but who are open to the needs and expectations of others", Pope Benedict declared. He added: "Happy Christmas".

The pontiff said that Christmas was "a universal feast in which even non-believers perceive something extraordinary, something transcendent which speaks to the heart. Christmas is a feast that speaks of the gift of life. The birth of a child is always something that brings great joy, and the embrace of a newborn moves one to tenderness".

He said his thoughts turned to "the many children born into poverty throughout the world, those newborns who are rejected and not welcomed, those who will not survive because of lack of care and attention, those families who yearn for the joy of a child and have yet to see this realised".

Christians did not celebrate Christmas simply as "the birth of a great man or the end of a season", but rather as "a pivotal moment in history - the incarnation of the Divine Word for the salvation of humanity". He quoted St Paul's words in his letter to the Galatians, "God sent his son born of a woman", and in his letter to the Romans: "If we are children of God we are also heirs of God".

Above all it was St John who meditated on "the mystery of the incarnation" by saying "Et Verbum caro factum est," or "The Word was made Flesh", the Pope said, noting that this was a phrase used in the liturgy "since earliest times". A "truly really great light" was born in Bethlehem, the Pope said, "and the creator of the universe became flesh, thus irrevocably uniting himself to humanity".