{"id":21862,"date":"2021-12-08T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T17:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=21862"},"modified":"2021-12-17T12:32:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T20:32:31","slug":"christmas-and-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2021\/12\/08\/christmas-and-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas and capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Christmas season is the busiest time of year for retailers, and they know exactly how to capitalize on that. More to the point, they know how to manipulate the holiday to ensure\u00a0 <\/span>maximum profits. They have capitalized on it so much, in fact, that our observation of the holiday is slowly being changed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Advertisers equate spending money with joy and charitability, and they use that to leverage holiday sales. I even feel like I\u2019m a bad friend or family member if I don\u2019t spend enough money. We say it\u2019s the thought that counts but it\u2019s hard to follow through on that when someone buys you something with a price tag and you give them a drawing, poem, or otherwise thoughtful, but free, gift. People try to match the anticipated amount that others will spend on them, and it\u2019s causing holiday spending to rise every year. We tell ourselves that the holidays are for spending time with family, but it really seems like it\u2019s about spending money. Christmas has become entwined with capitalism in a very insidious way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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This story originally appeared in our December 1, 2021 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve heard people say, \u201cI love receiving things that I wouldn\u2019t buy for myself,\u201d and I get it: it\u2019s nice to receive something that you want but don\u2019t need. And that\u2019s great if it\u2019s something you will use, but everyone has received a gift that they won\u2019t use. Time, money, and energy was spent making that item and now it\u2019s sitting in your closet waiting to be thrown away. People buying things for other people is quite often a gamble, unless you know what that person wants. It really is a strange practice, if you break it down: I\u2019m spending money to buy you something with the expectation that you will spend money on me. Why not just buy something for yourself? Something that you know you will use?<\/p>\n

Christmas shoppers are increasingly shifting toward electronic retailers, which, unfortunately, means more waste and more emissions. Packing material and fuel costs for shipping make shopping online an environmentally questionable choice. And, sadly, this one isn\u2019t just a Christmas phenomenon: it goes year-round. Online prices are hard to beat, but when it comes to Christmas sales, it\u2019s maybe not impossible to find the same prices in person.<\/p>\n

If the thought is what counts, then why do we keep spending money? I would much rather receive a heartfelt handwritten card than a book I\u2019ve never heard of and will probably never read. But we are so locked in to this idea of spending that it\u2019s hard to break out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If any of this resonates with you, then try to break the cycle of spending. If you\u2019re like me, then there are five or six people you usually buy gits for\u2014that\u2019s not that many people. Make a group chat and see if your friends and family would be interested in cancelling the gift-giving this year. Exchange thoughts and kindness or handmade gifts instead. Keep the money that you would have spent and use it somewhere else; give it to a charity, if that\u2019s feasible for you.<\/p>\n

If you do choose to buy gifts, wrap them in recyclable paper; a lot of wrapping paper isn\u2019t. Try to buy from physical stores and support local businesses. Make sure you spend within your budget and encourage your gift-giving group to do the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong here: I love Christmas. I just think that our practice of the holiday has become somewhat warped. We have the power\u2014all of us\u2014to choose how we want to celebrate. I will be celebrating family, friends, love, and kindness. Not capitalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Christmas season is the busiest time of year for retailers, and they know exactly how to capitalize on that. More to the point, they know how to manipulate the holiday to ensure\u00a0 maximum profits. They have capitalized on it so much, in fact, that our observation of the holiday is slowly being changed.\u00a0 Advertisers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-december-1-2021"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21863,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21862\/revisions\/21863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}