Daily Advertiser editorial: Christmas came, thanks to an army of workers

It has been a year. It's been three years, really, looking back on time lost with loved ones while holed up or restricted to seeing smaller groups since the Christmas of 2019 that was so easy to take for granted.

But haven't we made up for it this year?

Despite the spectre of constantly rising interest rates, and skyrocketing cost of living, Australians have forked out big time this Christmas.

Around $66 billion - yes, billion - is expected to be spent by the time the Christmas trading period is over, according to the Australian Retailers Association.

It would be easy to lose, among the stress and the joy that comes with this time of year, sight of the fact that so much of what we get to experience at Christmas is also largely due to the hard work of others.

It's never been easier to outsource some of the more mundane tasks of life: the groceries, the gift shopping, the cleaning, the getting around.

Waiting in a bay for click and collect groceries to be dropped into the boot, ordering presents online, only a quick run to the seafood man or the cherry truck.

The desperate refreshing of tracking numbers that came with the anxious wait for a parcel you had 11 months to arrange, but waited until the last minute because really, where did that year go?

More than ever, Christmas came and went as well as it did because an army of our fellow humans stepped up to put in the hard yards with a smile on their face amid all the stress projected onto them.

Yes, they're working and they're paid for it, but anyone who stepped foot into any retailer - or worse, shopping centre - over the last fortnight would have walked away at some point grateful to be heading home and away from the madness.

To those who spent the last few weeks grabbing, packing, carrying, cleaning, scanning, delivering, pushing trolleys, fixing roads - Christmas came because of you.

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