As time moves past the Thanksgiving weekend (or for me, a poor retail employee, past Black Friday), or Halloween, it is officially Christmas time. Not religion-wise, of course—there is still the four weeks of Advent, but that does not stop the vicious cycle of capitalism from announcing the holiday season basically anywhere with a screen or a shop window. Shop playlists transitioning into well-loved Christmas songs (and the yearly return of Mariah Carey), Christmas-themed specials in cafés, a violent increase in red-green-gold-coloured merchandise; all of this to get people in the mood, or rather, get consumers to spend an exorbitant amount of money in a limited time period. The Christmas spirit is so all-encompassing that it is even celebrated in countries (largely) without Christian traditions or beliefs, such as Japan, where it took its own, more romantic turn—it is common for couples to spend it together and order fried chicken from KFC.
This is the point where I must come clean—I do not enjoy Christmas. I am a bit of a Grinch in that sense, especially as a non-religious person coming from a very religious family; the holiday was always a huge overwhelming family affair and besides the presents, I was never a huge fan. As I got older, more Grinch-like, and entered the purgatory known as retail, I found another reason to dread it—Christmas season meant winter sales or people frantically buying presents, which meant crazy busy work days. But, as dreadful as it may be to me and exciting to someone else, it is largely inevitable—the holiday has wormed its way into the world’s calendar and it does not seem to be going anywhere. Even I am weak to some Christmas-related practices—Christmas music, to be specific. It is not my fault that Last Christmas by Wham! is the best song ever.
Christmas the Money-Making Machine
Due to how normalised Christmas celebrations are (and how Christians fiercely protect and believe in the sanctity of the holiday), they can be used as a veil to distract from their other, less holy purpose, which is pushing forward the never-ending wheel of capitalism—“Christmas serves the cultural function of spurring economic participation”1. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), US retail sales for the Christmas season have been increasing since 2008, going from 501.5 billion dollars in 2008 to 936.3 billion in 2022.
It is almost impossible not to participate in the holiday-related customs, whether you consider yourself religious or not, since everything revolves around it during the autumn/winter months: gift-giving, parties, even giving yourself an end-of-the-year break. The light-hearted and family-focused nature of the holiday is exploited for profit and various industries promote excessive consumption to capitalise on those positive emotions and nostalgia. As summed up by Shelby Burroughs:
Christmas is able to be so pervasive because of how unassuming it is.
As we approach the holiday, it is important to be aware of the tactics used by companies under the guise of the ‘gift-giving season’ and be mindful of how we decide to spend our money.
What do you think of Christmas? Do you enjoy the early December holiday rush? Let me know!
- Burroughs, Shelby. “Consumer Capitalist Christmas: How Participation in Christmas Frames Us as Religious Subjects” (2019). Religion: Student Scholarship & Creative Works.
https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/relgstudent/8 ↩︎
I love Christmas and everything involved in it- I love corny christmas music and gift giving and the decorations even though logically I know the way we celebrate today is largely inseparable from consumerism and various corporate strategies to get us to spend money. I have a habit of buying and making my gifts unreasonably early so I end up missing the holiday sales altogether. My work also doesn’t have a license to play music so maybe my opinion would change if I spent my whole day listening to Michael Buble but I don’t know, I think I would still have the Christmas spirit within me.
The religious and culture differ from country to country! And I remember back to the time when I stayed in Japan for Christmas, KFC, and Sushi at home during the Christmas holiday (continuing to the New Year time) is really a thing :)) In Taiwan, as a non-Christian country, Christmas is for friends, the younger generation, we don’t have a big family thing so that’s also why I really enjoy the vibe and spirit.
Hi! I am a Christmas fanatic – my whole life my father has been into celebrating Christmas to the max: our whole home is heavily decorated, each countertop displaying some type of Christmas decoration. Christmas music plays 24/7 and the whole house smells of gingerbread because we bake almost daily. Therefore, because I was surrounded by Christmas traditions my whole life, I don’t think that I could ever not love Christmas. I agree that I do get tired of sometimes hearing the songs, especially when its the same song over and over.
Nonetheless, this post has reminded me to see this capitalistic and consumerist characteristic of such holidays. I definitely fall into the consumerist tunnel during Christmas because whenever I see some cute decoration I just have to buy it. Nonetheless, even though my family likes to buy new decoration, we have been using the same decoration that we bought when I was a child. I remember being four or five and seeing the Christmas Village Houses my father would display.
However, because I now see that there is a consumerist characteristic, in turn negatively affecting our environment, I will aim to be more sustainable in my purchases. For instance, I could buy decoration from second hand stores as I already love thrifting.
I also come from a religious family, though the religious aspect of Christmas ceased to be the central part of this holiday. Since we all live in different cities or even countries, it is a chance to spend some time together. Or that is the idea I have every time I go back for Christmas. In reality, the few days before are quite horrible. So close to the big day, everyone is frantically running around, buying presents, even though we all promised we wouldn’t. And walking into any store in December (and even November) means being attacked with cheap Christmas merchandise that will inevitably be thrown away before the New Year. Maybe it is radical, but one really does need a special Christmas pair of socks to go with their special Christmas jumper to get into the holiday mood.