Rafaela Davies, Second Year, Social Policy and Politics
There is an idea of Christmas that exists in the cultural consciousness: one of Santa Claus, snowy mornings, and children’s excitement. Around the world, traditions vary, but the staples of familial togetherness and generosity remain. Yet, Christmas has evolved from a religious festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ into a social and cultural phenomenon.
The slew of norms that accompany the season are now less spirituality-oriented and more about an abundant pile of presents under the tree, a banquet of food, and a stacked social calendar. Countless people report more anxiety and stress in the lead up to Christmas due to the pressure to perform, and lamenting Christmas’s commercialisation is so widespread as to become trite. However, pressures to conspicuously consume are not merely seasonal; they are at the core of Western life. The items we own have gained social meaning beyond functionality; they are now representations of identity, and Christmas only heightens an existing issue.
There is already a high link between social media usage and depression, and the added expectations around a “perfect” Christmas can make people more conscious of all the ways their lives fail to measure up to what they see online. The pressure to perform and display affluence is a self-perpetuating norm. Social media feeds boasting of glamorous Christmas parties, aspirational couples, and luxurious gift hauls can make scrolling-induced FOMO even worse than it normally is. People feel pushed to overextend their budgets and time to project a shinier version of their lives. This especially applies to loneliness. Most people online portray an image of themselves as surrounded by friends and family, but this is not the reality. 45% of adults admit to feeling lonely in the Christmas period, and 52% of older people call Christmas the loneliest time of year. While December has very low suicide rates, in January there is frequently an alarming surge in suicides. In the period after Christmas, usually one of financial hardship and disappointed expectations, many people feel extremely low.
Lily Allott
The mental health dip in the festive period is well-documented. A quarter of people in the UK say Christmas makes their mental health worse. Two in five Brits reported feeling stressed, and one in four has struggled with anxiety or depression in the period. The decline in mental well-being is likely linked with the increased financial strain associated with Christmas. In December, households spend 29% more than they would in a typical month, and for the many people living paycheck to paycheck, this is an increase that takes a toll. One in four people in 2024 reported struggling to afford Christmas, and for those with children at home, that figure rises to one in three. One in twelve relied on credit cards to fund their Christmas spending, and almost half of those said it would take them over six months to pay it off. The social expectations surrounding Christmas are not merely distasteful; they are damaging.
Christmas-time consumption also has devastating environmental impacts. Online shopping has become increasingly popular, accounting for 28% of UK household spending in 2023. This has implications for climate change, as most of these packages are shipped from thousands of miles away. In 2020, the shipping and returning of products accounted for 37% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Shein currently ships around 1 million packages a day, and this will only skyrocket in the lead-up to Christmas. Furthermore, a colossal amount of wastage happens each year due to overbuying and unwanted gifts. Food and decorations (and the packaging they come in) also contribute. Since the carnage our seasonal overindulgence creates is not directly visible, it is ignored.
Alice Guskov
Our society may have an obsession with conspicuous consumption, but it does not like to talk about where our possessions are made, and especially not who makes them. Everyone wants the new iPhone this Christmas; no one wants to talk about how Apple products are built on the back of child labour in cobalt mines. TikTok and Instagram become flooded every month with clothing hauls from fast fashion brands, made by influencers who own more clothes than they’ll ever be able to wear. But behind every Shein haul is a workforce spending 75 hours a week at sewing machines for a less than livable wage. Cheap prices like Shein’s are often the only way cash-strapped Westerners can participate in our collective overconsumption, especially at Christmas, when expectations to perform affluence reach new heights. Moralising about fast fashion can often have a class lens for this reason. But we need to begin deconstructing these norms around excessive consumption. One person’s cheap prices are another person’s low wages. The abundance we enjoy at Christmas comes at the expense of someone else’s lack.
Despite all these problems, Christmas is still a time of joy and togetherness for many people. In an increasingly spread-out age, where families are scattered across cities, countries, and continents, Christmas has become sacred for the fact that it accompanies rare reunions. It is also a time of heightened generosity, with the Charity Aid Foundation reporting that more money goes to charity in December than in any other month of the year . It is not Christmas that is inherently at fault, but the social constructs and expectations we have imposed on it. We have a culture of consumerism where people feel their worth and status are attached to what they own. It is only by realising how unsustainable and damaging these expectations are that Christmas can become a time of relaxation rather than stress.
Featured image: Unsplash / Patrick Pahlke
How conscious will you be of your consuming habits this December?
