I am at the end of my first decade of teaching. It has been a long year with many ups and many downs. In truth 2018 has been my busiest, happiest and most difficult. I am now officially on holiday and I have 6 weeks at home with Haley and the kids.
This time of year, always makes me breathe a sigh of relief, now I can rest, now I can really enjoy my family, now I can really start to recharge my battery for 2019. December brings another bit of excitement, celebrating Christmas!
I love this time of year, I look forward to hanging out with my family and extended family. Now that Haley and I have completed our little tribe, we decided to put up our very first Christmas tree and are looking forward to coming up with traditions that are unique to us and that our little girl and our two boys will grow up with. Christmas, it is the most wonderful time of year.
The sales pitch
It is also the time of year where the big brands and supermarkets line their pockets with our money and put out ridiculous sales that for whatever reason, sends people into complete meltdowns and some often lose their humanity in the process. Someone once told me: “If you want to see the worst of humanity, go to an ALDI snow sale.”
This seems like a pretty funny comment to make, but many have seen it. ALDI somehow each year are able to put together these snow sales, where the equipment and clothing (even though really cheap) is actually of a decent quality. A good friend of mine frequents these sales and he will often be decked out in ALDI snow gear, top to bottom when we go on our Ski Trips to New Zealand together, but the behaviour of people can be downright scary.
Black Friday
Black Friday sales kicked off (the season of deals) as I like to call it at the end of November. This is closely followed by Cyber Monday and not too long after that we will have the Boxing day sales. Recently Black Friday Chaos videos have been popping up all over Facebook and I decided to watch a few. They were very difficult to watch and honestly,
I felt sick to the stomach afterwards. Love for our fellow man was thrown out the window as shoppers pushed, shoved and grappled with each other for heavily discounted goods. Some of the frays were so violent police officers and security guards had to intervene, at one point a women tasers another as their fight for a discounted item escalates.
I saw grownups take toys from the hands of children, I saw children screaming in terror as their father got bashed by another man. Some stores were so completely run over by people that there was damage everywhere.
All to save a few dollars….
The sad reality of the world today is that it places the attainment of material possessions over the wellbeing of our neighbours. The world today makes people become animals to save money on the latest and greatest gadget. The world today tells you that you need this new pair of jeans, this new flat screen television, the latest smart phone. Make sure you get it, by any means….
Or you will miss out….
The reason for the season
All the staff at my school met together this morning for an hour of praise and worship. The reason for the season sank so deep into my heart and mind, Jesus. The hope of the world, the one who would restore mankind back to God, the one who was born ultimately to die the most horrific of deaths on a cross for the sin of the world. December for me ultimately is a month where I often reflect on the coming of Jesus.
His family were refugees, he was born in the filth of a stable and later he would lead a humble life that would lead to his death and praise God his resurrection.
Jesus brought hope to the disenfranchised, to the unclean, to the lonely, the hurt, the lost. This Christmas season, we should be bringing hope to those around us, we need to see the needs within our local communities and we need to meet those needs. There is nothing wrong with buying things, there is nothing wrong with buying things on sale, but no item is worth fighting over, no item is worth losing your humanity over.
This season, don’t lose sight of the value that Jesus saw in mankind. Every man, women and child has purpose, we have value, we are loved and we need each other. Don’t let your lust for material items override our duty to love and care for each other. Merry Christmas.
Jarred is an HPE and Mathematics teacher on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, he is married to Haley and has three beautiful children Chelsea, Nathan and Ryan.