Christmas Comes Earlier Each Year
Several holiday treats in a window display. Photo by Gül Işık
The holidays are a time to give thanks for what we have and celebrate those around us. However, it feels like the holidays begin to be celebrated earlier every single year.
Local store decorations appear to swap from Halloween to Christmas before Halloween is even over. The popularity of Mariah Carey’s holiday track “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in terms of Google searches is already higher than in the past 19 Novembers, and on Marist College’s campus, we are seeing the lights go up on the school’s Christmas tree. The holiday season feels like it is in full effect earlier than usual, so why is that?
While this time of year is about being thankful for what we have, a large celebration of the winter holiday season is heavily commercialized and profitable for many companies. An increase in spending encourages corporations to start celebrating the holidays sooner, as it may increase their profit overall.
A prominent example of holiday spending takes place the weekend after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, where stores place massive sales on more expensive items, toys, and clothes in preparation for the holiday season beginning. According to Adobe Analytics, on an average October day in 2022, online stores earn anywhere from $1.9 billion to $3.9 billion. However, on Thanksgiving of 2022, $9.2 billion was spent, the second-highest sales day for online stores from between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022. The day with the highest sales was Nov. 27, with $11.3 billion earned.
This general trend of increased spending is highly present throughout the whole season. Excluding 2008 and 2009 due to the housing crisis, the holiday season saw a constant increase in earnings compared to the previous year. From 2000 to 2019, the average increase in earnings during the holiday season, according to the US Census Bureau, was 3.09%. However, the spending rate has been abnormally high in the past few years. 2020 saw a 9.3% increase, 2021 experienced a 13.5% increase, while in 2022, there was a decrease, but still high rate of 6%. As of Nov. 6, 2023, we already see a 3% increase in spending from last year alone, barely any time into the holiday season.
The increase in interest in the holidays from 2020 onwards indicates why we celebrate the holidays earlier. 2020 was an uncertain time, with the rise of COVID-19, political polarization, and an increased awareness of injustice among multiple daily stressors. If the holiday season is about being thankful for what we have and having a comforting time, it makes sense to celebrate a comforting holiday for a longer period. The holiday season brings the focus away from the large-scale problems of today to focus more on the small-scale gifts that we do have. It effectively acts as an escapism from everyday stressors.
While the heavy commercialization of the holidays may encourage different corporations to celebrate the holiday season sooner to increase earnings, the past few years of alertness to large-scale issues may encourage some to retreat into the comfort of the holiday season sooner.