Christmas: between tradition and consumption

Christmas today simultaneously operates as a religious-cultural celebration and a major driver of consumer economies with neither dimension fully explaining its global significance.  

Historically, the culture and communities of churches embedded Christmas in liturgical calendars, charity practices, and family-based rituals emphasizing worship and community over material display. The rise of mass retail and advertisement in the 19-20th centuries reframed those practices into gift giving, home decorations, and festive foods as engines of seasonal consumption, turning December into a critical period for retailers in North America, Europe and parts of Asia.  

Contemporary studies (Miller) show that “Christmas economies” highlight how media narratives and branding like standardized Santa illustration and retail campaigns shape expectations about what a “proper” Christmas should look like, often equating emotional success with spending levels. At the same time, ethnographic work on holiday practices in the Global South and among lower-income groups underscores that church services, informal economies, remittances and communal feasts remain central, revealing some forms of resistance to purely consumerist models. 

In conclusion, culture and consumerism are now structurally intertwined in Christmas: cultural norms legitimize consumption (through obligations to give, host and decorate), while capitalist systems distribute and amplify those norms via markets and media. Debates around “simple,” “sustainable” or “alternative”. Christmas practices such as reducing gifts, emphasizing charity or prioritizing experiences are best understood as attempts to rebalance this relationship rather than to return to a purely pre-commercial past. 

Bibliography:

Grinnell-Wright, Vicky. “Consumerism Christmas – the Sustainability Dilemma.” The Guardian, 17 Dec. 2012, www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/christmas-sustainability-consumerism-stuff-conflict. 

Miller, Daniel. “Christmas: An Anthropological Lens.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, vol. 7, no. 3, Dec. 2017, pp. 409–42, https://doi.org/10.14318/hau7.3.027. 

Wikipedia Contributors. “Christmas.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas.