A reflection on spending at Christmas
24 Jan, 2025Join Rosie Kendall – CEO, CAP Australia – as she reflects on the pressure to spend during the Christmas season.
Consumerism and the feeling of always needing more pulls at my heart strings.
I have three daughters. Ahead of Christmas in 2024, my intention was to keep it simple with their gifts – buy them something they need, something to play with, something to read, and something to wear. I say simple, but I also recognise that I’m in a privileged position to be able to buy them gifts at all.
However, the feeling of wanting to get them more often drives me to buy them more than I originally intended.
I know this isn’t all bad – it comes from a heart of generosity and wanting to delight them. But I also know that it comes from feeling like I don’t want them to be disappointed and feel like what I have bought them isn’t enough (which as I write this, seems totally nonsensical, but is often how I feel nonetheless).
ASIC recently shared that 44% of Australians will regret their Christmas spending. On reflection, I’d probably include myself within this 44%.
There are things I bought that I didn’t need to buy. Things that were discarded within minutes of opening. Food that was thrown away or not appreciated.
I know that advertising is a key influence, too. It’s designed to ignite us in a pressing want and represents a lack that can only be satisfied by acquisition – whether that be wealth or material objects. Advertisements make us feel that we can only be happy if we have that certain thing, and our lives couldn’t possibly be as meaningful without it.
Realistically, I’m not sure it’s possible to live within our culture and not be influenced by the desire for ‘more’. And it’s good for me to face the reality that I’m not immune to these influences.
But, if I can afford it, is it really a problem?
To answer this, I have been grappling with a few questions.
- How does my spending on the girls fuel their own consumeristic desires? Through my spending, am I modelling to them that the only way to be truly satisfied is by having more? Ouch.
- Is there more I could be doing to fuel my family’s love of giving – especially to those that are in need? We always put a hamper together for a family doing it tough at Christmas, but is it enough considering the comparative ‘excess’ of some of our spending?
- How did the products and produce I bought at Christmas impact the people producing and selling them? I think we could have done a better job at using the opportunity to ensure that our spending was a blessing to the people we purchased from and the people we gave to. I like to think that I’m a conscientious spender, but there is something about Christmas (maybe it’s the lack of time or the increased pressure to buy things) that leads me to make less ethical choices in my spending.
God has been kind to me as I have wrestled with these questions. I’m not even sure there is a right or wrong way to answer them. But in asking them, I feel like I have moved closer to authentically following Him through the Christmas period. My desire is to celebrate His birth with joy and generosity without giving way to the temptations that consumerism presents me with.
Interestingly, my daughters’ favourite moments over Christmas were times when we were together, doing things that didn’t cost us anything. Maybe I need to remember that as I head into budgeting for Christmas in 2025!

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