Monday, 6 January 2014

Being An Elf

There they were.
Hordes of children.
They excitedly bounced around in anticipation.

Santa Claus was coming to town.

I watched the bulging line up grow steadily longer, laden with snot-nosed children being held back by parents whose look said, "I've had enough of this shopping mall" and thought to myself 'how did this become what Christmas is all about?'

Coming from track and seeing extreme poverty where children are in need of basic essentials to watching children line up to show Santa their lists or torn out pieces from the Sears catelogue and telling him of their need to have an Ipad, a PSP or lego mania while complaining that their candy cane broke.
Parents spend a lot of money for one photo.  That money could feed a child in an orphange for a week had it been elsewhere.

It was a struggle for me to find the balance in all of this and to not become furious at the wealth of our nation.  How has the birth of Jesus morphed into this display of consumerism and selfishness centred around this fictional character?  Every comercial I heard on the radio was geared around buying this or that for someone at Christmas.  It made me sick to think about the people I met this past year who will get nothing for Christmas.  We contentedly stuff our faces with endless amounts of food and then join a gym to work it off, but there are people around the world who will be lucky to have a meal on Christmas day.

I don't mean to write this blog to critisize and condemn my fellow Canadians.  I am writing this because after having my eyes opened to different parts of the world, I had feelings arise within me that I had never experienced any other Christmas and I wonder if anybody has ever felt the same.  We take the best story in all of history and turn it into some cheap counterfeit in order to make money while other nations are starving to know the true story of Christmas that can literally change their world.

It made me sad.  Just thought I'd let you know that for me - being an elf wasn't all it was cracked out to be.


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