Peer Pressure
This will be our twentieth Christmas together. The tree is fairly dripping with nostalgia. Here's our very first ornament. There's the mother-of-pearl star from Jordan Marsh on the top. Here's the one we picked up on our honeymoon, here's the octopus grasping a pearl you found at the Museum of Fine Arts, and there's the one I brought back from that business trip in '96.
But this year is different, and we're feeling uncomfortable about it. We decided that, since there were still books unread and DVDs unwatched from Christmases past, and since we're about to remodel and refurnish, that it would be best to not spend money on more piles of stuff we don't need. We'll give each other promissory notes for a new couch, a new TV, new carpeting, and so on.
Makes perfect fiscal sense, doesn't it? As Wharton professor Joel Waldfogel wrote in Scroogenomics,
"Throughout the year, we shop meticulously for ourselves, looking at scores of items before choosing those that warrant spending our own money. The process at Christmas, by contrast, has givers shooting in the dark about what you like… to make matters worse, we do much of this spending with credit, going into hock using money we don’t yet have to buy things that recipients don’t really want."
We've reached the point in our marriage - actually we reached it a while back - that we really have everything we want. There's nothing we need at Christmas. I was delighted when she found the perfect sweater, but now I've already got it. And the same goes for her.
Books? We've mountains of them. Music? We get it all on iTunes now. Video? Who needs it when you've got a Netflix subscription?
And yet, despite this perfectly sensible and economically sound decision to devote our Christmas budget to something a little later in the year that we actually do need, I feel kind of guilty. There's been no panicked shopping. UPS hasn't littered my front porch with parcels. There's no stack of gaily wrapped packages under the tree. There's not going to be an orgy of unwrapping on Christmas morn. Will this be The Christmas That Wasn't?
Or am I just feeling pressured to go out and buy something - anything - just because everybody else is in a full feeding frenzy? And if everyone else jumped off a bridge...
Here's a thought: Most of the stuff on the shelves is labeled, "Made in China." Do you know what the Chinese give as gifts on Chinese New Year? Is it chotchkes and electronic gizmos?
Nope. They give cash.
But this year is different, and we're feeling uncomfortable about it. We decided that, since there were still books unread and DVDs unwatched from Christmases past, and since we're about to remodel and refurnish, that it would be best to not spend money on more piles of stuff we don't need. We'll give each other promissory notes for a new couch, a new TV, new carpeting, and so on.
Makes perfect fiscal sense, doesn't it? As Wharton professor Joel Waldfogel wrote in Scroogenomics,
"Throughout the year, we shop meticulously for ourselves, looking at scores of items before choosing those that warrant spending our own money. The process at Christmas, by contrast, has givers shooting in the dark about what you like… to make matters worse, we do much of this spending with credit, going into hock using money we don’t yet have to buy things that recipients don’t really want."
We've reached the point in our marriage - actually we reached it a while back - that we really have everything we want. There's nothing we need at Christmas. I was delighted when she found the perfect sweater, but now I've already got it. And the same goes for her.
Books? We've mountains of them. Music? We get it all on iTunes now. Video? Who needs it when you've got a Netflix subscription?
And yet, despite this perfectly sensible and economically sound decision to devote our Christmas budget to something a little later in the year that we actually do need, I feel kind of guilty. There's been no panicked shopping. UPS hasn't littered my front porch with parcels. There's no stack of gaily wrapped packages under the tree. There's not going to be an orgy of unwrapping on Christmas morn. Will this be The Christmas That Wasn't?
Or am I just feeling pressured to go out and buy something - anything - just because everybody else is in a full feeding frenzy? And if everyone else jumped off a bridge...
Here's a thought: Most of the stuff on the shelves is labeled, "Made in China." Do you know what the Chinese give as gifts on Chinese New Year? Is it chotchkes and electronic gizmos?
Nope. They give cash.