Love it or hate it, this is the time of year when most of us go shopping in earnest. But a new report reveals that nearly one in five Americans will do no holiday shopping at all this year.
According to a survey on shopping habits by market research firm NPD Group and CivicScience, a culture-trend research company, 18 percent of Americans will take a pass on holiday buying altogether. That is up from 17 percent last year, the first year the question was asked.
Comments
"These are people who, honestly, seem just sick and tired of the madness"
This line is laugh out loud funny to me. Really?? We *seem* sick and tired?? Wake up retailers, merchandisers, and the media. We're absolutely fed up. My family stopped buying more and more and more things years ago. We focus on the holiday itself.
My family has decided we would give to charity instead. We each pick a charity and then we donate in that persons name.
Those in the 1% have succeeded in helping the 99% see that placing in the 18% is the best place to be...and that is a demographic that is sure to grow as more people appreciate what they have in family and personal time, freedom, and...peace.
We had been throttling back for years. Gradually getting away from the obligatory gifts to friends and family outside of our home. While we were cutting all of that out we were also getting "smaller" inside our home. It was great. Yes we still decorate and yes we still give some small gifts to the our kids (now in their mid teens) but my wife and I haven't exchanged for years. We love it. There's no pressure. There are no bills. This year I walked into our local BJ's and they had pallets of ornaments on the floor. It was Labor Day weekend. I've become secular over the years. I can tell that both of my children are heading the same way. Retailers killed it for Charlie Brown and they are killing it for us as well. It's their right but it's my protest and in this house... I'm winning.
I started souring on "Chritsmas" and what it had meant to me with the Christmas eve "Tet Offensive" of the Viet Nam War (remember that war?) and totally turned against it when a then-popular merchant in Bosotn some years later had as its "holiday" theme "Gift Yourself!" (Guess which presidential era that was...) And it has gone downhill consistently since then. Will not be a party to the buy, buy, buy, spend, spend, spend mania. The meaning of what was the CHRISTmas of my childhood has long been lost to commercialism, greed, and the shallownish of too much of our culture.
If whatever you think Christmas should mean has long gone from your life, it's wholly your fault. You control how much your mind is affected by commercialism. Commercialism isn't evil; it's just free-market capitalism that's always been there and has always been shallow and greedy.
What does the Tet Offensive have to do with Christmas? And are you saying some advertisement can change you view of the world. I think you're watching to much TV and become hypnotized by it.
I don't buy gifts for everyone in sight, but it's a special time of year to show important people in your life that they're appreciated. I don't think it's family members who are necessarily the most important either. Important to me are a handful of friends who you want to feel as special as they are. And a few others -- like the person who delivers my newspaper every morning.
It not begrudging. Gifts come from the heart. If you can't feel joy in giving a gift to someone, you shouldn't. That would be hypocritical.