Selling the Holidays Away

By Madeleine Candy

It seems like as soon as Halloween toys and decorations are over, Christmas ones are here! We all know that companies need money in order to get financially benefited, but how does this affect the wider public?

These are the statistics for each year. Christmas is the biggest sales event in the year, earning approximately $66 billion for department stores around Australia. Second comes Easter, exceeding $8 billion in sales. Although Halloween is not very well celebrated in Australia, stores still earnt around $430 million! But are the holidays really about all of this money spending?

When you think about Christmas, of course the first thing that comes to mind for kids is presents. This is often at the expense of family time, and don’t forget, the epic Christmas dinner feasts. However, even eating at Christmas can be more expensive than any other time of the year! Catalogues are filled with advertisements for turkeys, seafood, pudding and mince pies. These foods are exceedingly more expensive than an average family's grocery bill. Data shows that more than a quarter of shops like Woolworths, revenue is generated during the Christmas period. Thus, consumers are spending much more money on food during the festive season.

The over-commercialisation of holidays and increased consumerism is creating a wasteful culture that impacts the environment dreadfully. Be honest, how much Halloween candy wrappers, or even uneaten lollies (unlikely), get thrown in your bins each year? Research shows tons of these products annually reach landfill due to being individually wrapped for hygiene reasons. Then there's used Christmas crackers, wrapping paper, discarded Christmas trees, plastic decorations, leftover food and unwanted gifts to add to the pile. Given that most of this waste is non-recyclable and often single-use, the excessive spending during holiday periods generates excessive and unnecessary waste, which ends up in landfill and ultimately damages the Earth.

In conclusion, Christmas, Halloween and Easter are fun opportunities to celebrate and come together, but it is important to consider how these festivities are affecting the wider world around us.