’Tis the season of giving… hugs?
President Trump’s support might not have wavered too much with his voters after the last few weeks of stock and bond market volatility. But his Achilles heel might reveal itself this December.
As he continues to yo-yo on tariffs from a 145 percent tariff rate one day to exempting smartphones and computers the next, Americans are unsure of how to prepare.
Should we stock up now on non-perishable items? Should we upgrade the phone? Is now a bad time to trade in your car? However, there is a bigger specter that is sure to cause Trump and his administration to lose sleep. It is the ghost of the Christmas season.
Republicans have been trying to convince Americans about some mythological “War on Christmas” that liberals have been waging for decades. Conservatives have howled that the immigrants who have come into this country aren’t Christian and professed that liberals have engaged in a concerted agenda to somehow brainwash kids into thinking that Christmas is some random day. Of course, Republicans, for all their hysteria, get to watch as every year as Americans from all backgrounds regardless of religion, politics or location go all out to celebrate Christmas.
Muslims will volunteer to deliver gifts and take their kids to see Christmas lights. Hindus have begun to adopt the holiday and decorate their houses. (One of my neighbors got into hot water with the HOA for trying to roll over his Diwali lights into Christmas lights). And for all their alleged anger over being forced to say “Merry Christmas,” liberals go back home to family, buy presents and put up all the Christmas décor. It’s often been said we are not as different as our politicians make us out to be, and the best evidence for this is Christmastime.
Conservatives might still be mad we are missing the “reason for the season,” but there is an undeniable truth. Americans love to celebrate Christmas, and we open up our wallets. In 2024, Americans came close to a whopping $1 trillion on holiday spending with the average American spending around $1,000 personally. Almost three fourths of that spending is on holiday gifts. The rest is for items like trees, food, candy, Christmas cards, lights and activities.
Personal holiday spending has more than doubled in the last 20 years. When it comes to personal spending on Christmas, the United States is third overall only behind Canada and Germany. But when it comes to percentage of holiday spending on presents, the U.S. is practically tied with the U.K. for the lead.
Breaking down spending by region, Republicans might be annoyed to learn that Americans, regardless of where they live, spend about the same per person. Southern households spend the least, but that’s only $100 less than in the Northeast, where households spends the most. We start shopping early in October and are starting to move our online shopping even more to websites like Amazon. Almost 40 percent of presents are bought on Amazon.
Where do most of these items come from? Our trading “frenemy,” China, which exported about $3 billion worth of Christmas-related items, not including presents. All the lights, wreaths, ornaments, artificial trees and advent calendars come from the country against which we are fighting a trade war. This means that Americans can now count on spending more this Christmas season.
When it comes to the holidays, we are deeply traditional. We like to have our families eat the same foods, play the same games, decorate at the same time, travel to the same place and we like to do this year after year. What we don’t like is when there are deviations from those plans. While conservatives have fantasized about liberals and immigrants trying to stop Christmas from happening, we will now have the reality that Christmas might be very different this year thanks to President Trump.
There is a certain chance that 145 percent increases on Chinese imports will have an adverse effect on spending. You might want to take up Trump’s pseudo-patriotic notion that we collectively have to pay more now in order to have a bright future later, but will Americans be willing to sacrifice good tidings and joy because we have to have a trade war?
The most insane thing about this is that Christmas is eight months away and Americans have no idea what the prices of goods will be then, much less next week. Trump’s trade war strategy of just making things up and backing off when his decisions backfire won’t ease consumer confidence and will definitely play havoc on the holidays.
We will have no idea of when the best time to purchase that video game console would be, if we should just pay extra for permanent lights, how much inventory stores will have, if the gifts we order on Amazon will be backlogged, or what our holiday budget should be. We don’t know if we will get Christmas bonuses or if our companies will have profits to share. We have no idea how bad our stock portfolios will be and how much income we will generate this year.
Now, of course, we will find a way to make the best out of things. It is in our nature and part of our culture. We adapt to adversity remarkable well as a culture. However, we still hate changes to the things we enjoy the most.
If Trump continues his trade war, he will most certainly finally start the war on Christmas that Republicans have been warning about.
Jos Joseph is a master’s candidate at the Harvard Extension School at Harvard University. He is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and lives in Anaheim, Calif.