Did you know that around 45% of the global population celebrates Christmas every year? And with the number of people living on Earth recently hitting 8 billion, this means that over 3 billion people hold a Christmas dinner and give each other brand new gifts, ranging from toys to ugly Christmas sweaters.
Focusing on Canada, more than the 87% of the population celebrates Christmas, either as a secular holiday or a religious one. And with the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the population these past couple of years, we can say that this is the first Christmas finally being fully celebrated post-pandemic, leaving COVID behind our backs as a bad memory. Or is it?
The impact that the pandemic had on our general economy at the very beginning is clearly noticeable and undeniable, but the 2022 Christmas season is here to remind us that the COVID effect is still not over. And to make matters worse, inflation is still rising, hitting peaks never seen since 1981. How does this affect the average consumer and their Christmas shopping?
Impact on the Economy:
First of all, “the sooner you start, the sooner you finish” has been many Canadians mantra this fall, a lot of them starting their shopping in September or early October to avoid any of the bad surprises inflation was sure to bring. And retailers played their part perfectly, with a significant percentage of big chains (Amazon included) making Christmas deals and offers starting from late September, oftentimes overlapping with Halloween. Also, 26% of Canadian population had their shopping finished by the end of Black Friday, which was November 25th (one month before the holiday), up 18% compared to 2021.
Secondly, traditions around food have been highly impacted by the inflation spiral. Who doesn’t enjoy a fancy, rich turkey dinner with plenty of other goodies on the table? Sadly enough as, according to a CTV survey, 76% of Canadians households will change their holiday eating habits to fit the increasing price of groceries at supermarkets. Such a low spending in groceries has not been seen since 2020, when we all spent our Christmas with our close ones locked in our houses.
Environmental Impact:
On the bright side, this holiday will not be as polluting as usual. Take gifts, and all the process behind their creation, and add wrapping paper, the tape used to wrap it, Christmas lights, food that goes to waste because you prepared too much and so on. Data from 2021 show that 545,000 tonnes of paper waste are generated by gift-wrapping and that overall 6 million rolls of tape are used to wrap up gifts. Household environment impact can go up by 25% percent during holiday season and after 6 months, only 1% of the gifts are still used while the other 99% is thrown away. This is very alarming for the Earth and its climate. As a matter of fact, this is likely going to be a green Christmas for many due to global warming. With the run to get gifts and the amount of consumption being slowed down by both Covid and inflation, maybe 2022’s impact won’t be as bad. You might want to think twice before your gift ends up in the 99% list, as it can always come around as useful and make you save some money!
Inflation is leaving us with a way less aesthetic and traditional Christmas compared to the ones we used to have before 2020, and not being able to be fully back to Christmas celebrations after 2 long years is certainly sad. But the “consume less and save more mentality” is the way to go to start protecting our planet. “Earth overshoot day” was more than 4 months ago, more precisely July 28th: this means that all of the resources that we were supposed to use in the fiscal year of 2022 were completely utilized and finished by that date. Ever since, we’ve been in debt towards the Earth of every single resource we used.
Christmas of 2022 is going to be different, but still holding tight to its traditions. Hopefully it will teach us a lesson, or before we even notice, Christmas as we know it might be gone forever.
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