"A Merry Corporate Christmas"

Christmas time is upon us, and whether or not you celebrate the holiday, Corporate America makes sure that everyone feels the “jolly” spirit. Maybe it’s always been this way, but the annual “Christmas magic” we were promised has faded and morphed into nothing more than the season of monetary greed rather than of giving. 

 If you aren’t sick of the same songs playing every year since the 1980s or the giant “HOLIDAY SALE” signs posted up wherever you shop, maybe you can still manage to stomach a trip to the mall around this time of year. 

If you can’t, don’t worry! Corporate America made sure with the push for online shopping at an all time high that you’d be able to avoid the in-person irritation. 

Yet, there was a time where “irritation” was an eager anticipation. I couldn’t wait to shop with my mom and little sister from store to store, searching for gifts circled in colored catalogs. My heartbeat raced as I grabbed the item I knew would be the perfect fit for the gift receiver. I swear the world was brighter during those days.  

It wasn’t the buying of the item that I enjoyed; it was the gifting. I loved being at the store with my mother and sister and solving the puzzle of what gift best suited who we were buying for. 

It was the experience of singing in the car while we drove to the next destination that I remember, not the deal we got on the gift. 

We have lost the art of togetherness. Overconsumption has buried the holiday spirit we crave every year under piles of microtrends and thousand-dollar Christmas hauls. The capitalistic beast prey on the fear of missing out to apply a scarcity mentality to shopping. If you’ve ever heard:

“Get it before it’s gone!” “Our best deal yet!” “ONE DAY SALE!” “Limited Edition!” “BoGo, Go, GO!” you have experienced scarcity marketing.

Companies bank off of nostalgia which does nothing more than drive us farther away from it while social media pushes an agenda that normalizes the need to have the same item in every color or the new item of the week even though the one you have now works just fine. 

One day, I hope I can bring my children the joy of connection rather than the artificial anxiety disguised as excitement brought upon by the capitalist scarcity marketing and mentality.