Christmas and Spending
Moose
Munchin and Musing
Posted: 11/10/24
I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were talking about how stressed we were financially. For her in particular, things were a bit rough. She has a wedding she's saving for, as well as the holidays are upon us. So she was saying how she already felt tapped out financially, but still had more Christmas shopping to do.
This has me thinking about my own relationship with Christmas presents. Since I've been old enough where it was somewhat expected that I get gifts for people, I've not really had the extra money for gifts. Maybe a card or a thing here or there, but realistically I should not have been buying people gifts. Usually whatever I did buy was put on a credit card, which I then would pay off throughout the year (or it would empty out my savings and I'd spend the rest of the year building it up again). For years I've considered telling people I don't celebrate Christmas just so they wouldn't get me presents - since I feel bad receiving them if I can't also give them. This year I'm not sure I'll be getting anyone presents, as I really don't like the debt cycle.
This had me thinking though about millenials/ gen z-ers/ other younger generations, and their relationship to spending money. There always seems to be some article about "Millenials killing the x industry" where experts wonder why this is happening and the answer, to me, always seems obvious as "we don't have enough income to justify these things". This seems to be getting progressively worse though. With 80% of Americans viewing fast food as a luxury (myself included), this to me would imply a lot of Americans in general are having a hard time affording anything really. And if people can barely afford things day to day, what does that say about Christmas gifts?
It's not something I'm deeply terrified about or anything. The holidays have always been about seeing loved ones to me. Obviously I love getting presents, but if I didn't I'd also be okay. If I have kids one day I'd hope to get them presents. No, what really stuck out to me though is I had never really thought about how, possibly, Christmas gift giving could be on the line for folks. Especially since I believe a lot of retail stores sort of rely on the holiday purchases to sustain them.
Maybe this though is a non-issue. I've not looked at any data on buying habits over the years, so maybe everything is fine. It's just not something I really thought about before and so when I did, wanted to sort of talk about it.
I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were talking about how stressed we were financially. For her in particular, things were a bit rough. She has a wedding she's saving for, as well as the holidays are upon us. So she was saying how she already felt tapped out financially, but still had more Christmas shopping to do.
This has me thinking about my own relationship with Christmas presents. Since I've been old enough where it was somewhat expected that I get gifts for people, I've not really had the extra money for gifts. Maybe a card or a thing here or there, but realistically I should not have been buying people gifts. Usually whatever I did buy was put on a credit card, which I then would pay off throughout the year (or it would empty out my savings and I'd spend the rest of the year building it up again). For years I've considered telling people I don't celebrate Christmas just so they wouldn't get me presents - since I feel bad receiving them if I can't also give them. This year I'm not sure I'll be getting anyone presents, as I really don't like the debt cycle.
This had me thinking though about millenials/ gen z-ers/ other younger generations, and their relationship to spending money. There always seems to be some article about "Millenials killing the x industry" where experts wonder why this is happening and the answer, to me, always seems obvious as "we don't have enough income to justify these things". This seems to be getting progressively worse though. With 80% of Americans viewing fast food as a luxury (myself included), this to me would imply a lot of Americans in general are having a hard time affording anything really. And if people can barely afford things day to day, what does that say about Christmas gifts?
It's not something I'm deeply terrified about or anything. The holidays have always been about seeing loved ones to me. Obviously I love getting presents, but if I didn't I'd also be okay. If I have kids one day I'd hope to get them presents. No, what really stuck out to me though is I had never really thought about how, possibly, Christmas gift giving could be on the line for folks. Especially since I believe a lot of retail stores sort of rely on the holiday purchases to sustain them.
Maybe this though is a non-issue. I've not looked at any data on buying habits over the years, so maybe everything is fine. It's just not something I really thought about before and so when I did, wanted to sort of talk about it.