Christmas is a lot of things. And not to play too much the Grinch here, but it seems that one of those things is a holiday of over-consumption.
Dr. Seuss wrote in his book How The Grinch Stole Christmas!:
“Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas means a little bit more.”
Christmas time is undeniably special, if not only for the break we all seem to desperately need this stressful time of year. But while the Grinch might have been overly pessimistic at first, he seems to have understood what Christmas is not. Some might say, more than we do, as we rush to buy our gifts, decorations and food.
A History of Christmas Shopping
Yet, this hasn’t always been the case.
Along with our other Christmas traditions which developed during the Victorian era, came the concept of ‘Christmas Shopping’. While not everyone had the means to participate, the Victorian Middle class would contribute to its cultural establishment. Unhindered by the Great War, the gift of Christmas consumerism eventually managed to fully be ingratiated into the wider part of society.
However, Christmas still had the undertone of generosity, rather than capitalist greed. But the companies would go on to take full advantage of consumers’ holiday shopping habits. One more recent development is Black Friday, an unfamiliar concept in the UK until Amazon introduced it in 2010.
The rite of running through hordes of people, trying to find a gift for that brother-in law you don’t know, is well-established in our culture. Historian Mark Connelly even wrote describing it as the “most interesting and significant part of the English Christmas”.
In Scotland, however, Christmas has been deemed less important. For four-hundred years, up until 1958, Christmas was banned, and instead the New Year’s Eve festivities of Hogmanay held precedence within Scottish culture. Hogmanay comes with its own traditions, such as first footing – also a gift giving tradition.
Is our Christmas consumption sustainable?
So, maybe gift-giving is not the issue itself. Arguably it is rather the capitalism and consumer culture which has made us think that finding an item of a certain monetary value to gift someone, is the essence of Christmas.
Walking through the Thistles Shopping Centre, I pass the charity shops and see the piles of last year’s decorations and possible gifts. Yet, we need something new. Do we really need more decorations every year, just because they’re novel and shiny?
This is where our Christmas over-consumption is met with the dreadfully un-merry, but essential question of sustainability.
In the Guardian article “Average Briton causes 23 times more CO2 on Christmas Day, study reveals” from 2024, Damian Gayle writes about how we have been sold an idea of Christmas detrimental to our environment. Gayle references a study by the Guardian which found that with the gifts, decoration, food and travel the average British citizen’s carbon dioxide emissions increases twenty-three times.
Melanie Nazareth from Christian Climate Action, interviewed in the article, said:
“We have been deliberately sold a vision of Christmas that is based on material consumption. We are constantly bombarded by advertising and media that tells us that if we aren’t spending money on things, we are not doing Christmas properly.”
“This is destroying the whole meaning of Christmas as well as destroying the planet,” Nazareth concludes.
So… no gift-giving?
However, that is not to say we should give up on the Christmas spirit of generosity but rather normalize a more conscious approach to our consumption habits. Why can we not gift something hand-made or pre-loved? After all, isn’t it supposed to be the thought that counts?
This is also a time where, rather than finding gratitude in new possessions, we ought to seek it in what we already have. Dopamine from a new present can be lovely, but it is the person who gave the gift and our relationship to them that truly matters.
So, while consumerism continuously tries to steal Christmas from us every year, it was indeed the Grinch who found its true meaning. Now it is our task to actually live by it.
Featured Image Credit: Pexels.com, Andrea Piacquadio
2nd year History & Journalism Student at the University of Stirling. Moved over from Sweden in 2024 to study in Scotland.
