material world

Madonna said it best: We are living in a material world.

via Nordstrom tumblr

This realization always comes to mind for me around the holidays. I feel like during the holidays it's extremely easy to get wrapped (pardon that put I couldn't help myself) up in the idea of crafting the perfect Christmas list, or even brainstorming the perfect way to out-gift all of your friends at the gift exchange this year. This obsession that we seem to have with buying carries on all the way to Valentines day.

"Jesus is the reason for the season." This is something I like to remind myself this time of year, especially as I teach religious ed. to local sixth graders. It's often very easy to forget this as we eat our Santa shaped chocolates out of our advent calendars every morning and fasten reindeer antlers and a blinking red nose to our cars.

This phenomenon seems to say a lot about our culture. We care more about presents and lights then we do the reason for the holiday itself. By completely disregarding the historical value of such an event, we've only making ourselves look worse. One thing that I see a lot of churches doing are Christmas Pageants. Specifically, one church in my area has been putting on a pageant for over 50 years, and it draws quite the crowd each year, reminding everyone of the true meaning of christmas.

Hopefully in these last few days leading up to Christmas, an for some of you, the start of Hanukkah this week, we can keep in mind the reasons we celebrate, whether they be religious, or just a reminder to bring the whole family together.

Happy Holidays, jordan