When capitalism is in trouble, never fear because the world’s favorite holiday, Christmas, is here. While it may drain the bank accounts of those who celebrate, all within a second, at least people will be left opening the most expensive present!
All jokes aside, the holiday season is here, and with it, Christmas decor, lights and cartons of eggnog sell out across stores on the first day of November, making Christmas one of the most consumed holidays celebrated. The amount of money poured into the holiday makes it less of a joy-filled season and more of a slope into overconsumption and greed.
A few have thrived on how the average American reacts to the holidays, such as singer Mariah Carey, whose single “All I Want for Christmas” seems to charge its way into the Billboard top 10 songs in the country almost every year in December. This single has made a profit for the singer, earning Carey over $60 million just for the one song even nearly 30 years since its release. It contributes to the amount of people spending and consuming anything lightly associated with Christmas.
Carey is not the only one benefitting from the holiday bank though, as stores and shopping websites like Target and Amazon make nearly 30% of their yearly revenue during the holiday season alone, thus contributing to the surplus of sales and ad placement to rope more money into corporations’ pockets.
Unfortunately, the problem does not stop there, as the annual number spent towards Christmas averages $630 billion worldwide, far more than the $21 billion the second leading holiday makes. The amount of money spent worldwide just for the material satisfaction of gift-giving has drained the holiday spirit as people across the globe spend hundreds if not thousands to satisfy their and others’ desire to consume.
The original intent of Christmas was to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ while spending time with loved ones, which is what made Christmas a widely recognized holiday. However, it arguably became a game of spending the most money so you could look better than your neighbor, which fuels the overconsumption of Christmas products during the season.
It is not surprising that the Grinch was right; Christmas seems to be all about the presents, the food, the decorations and who has the bigger and better tree. The holiday has become deprived of the joy it had for us when we were younger and has become more of a cash grab for corporations; it is now an empty holiday allowing people to overconsume the holiday because of corporate greed.
Recently, with the COVID-19 chaos and the newfound negativity surfacing the internet, some have looked forward to the joy of Christmas, finding what comfort they can in the nostalgia. Of course, it can only do so much, therefore consumers buy more items to fill in the gaps, contributing to the never-ending money hole the holiday was meant to be against. Unfortunately, the more this happens the more products, the more sales, the more money all come together in this vicious cycle.
Christmas is no longer a holiday that brings family and friends together; it is an aesthetic price tag forever trapping unsuspecting people into the infinite spending loop that capitalism thrives on.
Contact Jordan Graham at [email protected]
