Christmas Consumerism

Today Christmas and business opportunity are words that go hand in hand, it has become hard to tell whether it is a market day or a holiday. It has become a holiday where consumer spending goes high as people rush to try and get the best gifts for their loved ones. This paper will take a brief look at how the Christmas holiday has been embedded into the consumer culture. Introduction Holidays are periods within the year that have been noted to warrant consumer spending across all parts of the globe. No one really know how this notion began, but, everyone who is involved in it seems to embrace it down to the last coin that they can spare. The Psychology of spending Human kind have always been creatures of habit wired to indulge in things that bring them joy.

It is in our nature to spend whatever little we may have on things that bring us pleasure or make us happy. Such pleasures can come from things like getting gifts, eating nice foods playing games or visiting nice places. However, different our spending maybe, the end result will be similar in that whatever we spend our money on, is meant to bring us some amount of joy. Holidays are especially the days when people get to dig deeper into their pockets given the vast advertisements that fly around concerning the products that are meant to make the day more memorable (Brida et al. Commercialization of Christmas Time has seen Christmas change from the once simple celebration of Christ to an event that has been ritualized and is full of costly expectations influenced by the consumers.

The month of December is usually covered with decorations in every town in America whether big or small as the people try to get into the holiday mood. Government and private institutions also partake in this Christmas spirit by decorating their offices and buildings with lights and Christmas trees which have mock gifts placed beneath them (Bruskeland & Bakaas, 2017). Shopping malls and department stores are stocked up with the latest commodities some with discount promotions to attract the most customers. A trip to the various holiday resorts will also reveal maximum bookings from tourists and local alike, all looking to have the best time during that season. Children would be encouraged by their parents to go and sit on Santa’s lap while they were at the store and give him their request for what they wanted for Christmas.

The idea of using Santa as an advertisement tool was an instant hit and businessmen were using every opportunity to ensure that they made profits out of it. Today these advertisements and commercialization have turned Christmas into the largest commercial and religious event in the world. Movies, music and commercialism played a major role in turning Christmas into an important part of the American culture (O’Malley, 2018). During the 1870’s, department stores started wrapping and putting gifts on display through their store windows to attract customers. The movie industry also helped popularized this new image of Santa as they created films that showed the importance of celebrating Christmas and how Santa always came to deliver gifts to people in the end.

The movies depicted the images of Santa Clause and shopping centers, thus encouraging commercialism. Giving and receiving gifts were always part of the themes in these movies. The rise in popularity of Santa Clause also worked magic for the movie industry as they began to realize profits from the Christmas movies that they produced. The 1935 film, Scrooge, was especially one of the most decorated Christmas films ever produced. The Christmas holiday is usually filled with decorations all over, be it in schools, homes, and even work places. People are always rushing all over trying to buy decorating items such as lights, Christmas trees, costumes, cards, wrapping papers and figurines. So when you do a calculation on the spending of this 90% of this American population during this holiday period, you will note a huge rise in the country’s economy.

There are also some other important expenditures that may not be included amongst the main areas of spending such as on gifts and decorations, but, are still of importance and need mentioning. For instance, in order for Christmas decorations such as lights to light up homes, streets and malls during this holiday, a large amount of electricity will be needed. Research has also shown that most of the gifts that are bought during this period are usually less than 100 dollars. Now, this may look cheap when you take that value individually, but, when you put in the fact that about 90% of the people will spend this kind of money it turns into billions of dollars. This percentage represents well over 300 million of the total population, meaning that even if each person was to spend at least $50 on Christmas, the merchants would still make huge profits out of the deal.

When you compare and contrast this with the sales during the other months of the year, the December sales will always rank at the top. The 2010 revenue report indicated that January was the month with the least amount of retail revenue, standing at only $84 billion. This American tradition was also able to brainwash people around the world through their advertisements and media presentations. These advertisement have made sure that there will always be a good percentage of people spending money during this period at all corners of the world. In conclusion, the spirit of Christmas has been turned and absorbed into the American consumer culture that ensures people get to spend money to make each other feel happy. The once simple and precise family event has been turned into profit making period.