The holidays have been commercialized to an extreme extent, causing shoppers to impulsively spend on unnecessary products, and buy more things than needed. Although everyone ¨consumes” there has been a strong push to buy more and more. With companies advertising and making their product seem like the perfect thing for you.
Christmas culture can pressure people to give a gift to others in order to show that they care about them. Most of the gifts that people give are ordered from an online store instead of being handmade. Black Friday contributes to this excessive spending as well, causing people to buy more things, even when unnecessary and unwanted, due to them being on sale.
Along with overspending, consumerism is bad for the environment, but it can start to make people define others based on what they own, and what gifts they can give, and afford. Companies need to mass-produce products to be able to meet buyers’ demands, so they overproduce and end up making lower-quality products. This can also overwork the employees trying to keep up with the demands the holidays bring.
Consumerism can make the holidays more about gifts and trying to gift the most expensive, nicest and most trendy items instead of spending time with family and friends. Retailers contribute to this by putting everything on sale, making it more enticing to buy for yourself or others, thinking you found the perfect thing at a low price.
People want the newest product. They want the “perfect life”.
They buy the most expensive television and cars, because they are on sale. The average American family wants to appear richer, and as though they could afford the best things, so they wait to buy it on sale. But instead of it being cheaper it totals to be more, due to overspending and consumerism.
Overall, you should value time with your family and loved ones rather than gifts. Spending time with family rather than spending time buying, wasting money and getting influenced.
