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Christmas is round the corner and for millions of people, that means present shopping is well underway.
Between family, friends and work colleagues, the list of people who you buy for can be pretty extensive and prove to be very, very costly. In the current cost of living crisis, that can be even more difficult with many households relying on borrowings to finance Christmas.
For several years, Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis has been leading a campaign encouraging people to stop buying unnecessary presents. Martin often says that Christmas has become a “retail festival” and suggested that people should release others from the “burden” of gift giving.
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For more than a decade, he had tried to encourage a “no unnecessary present” pact where people agree not to exchange presents when one or both would benefit from spending the money elsewhere. With this Christmas coming at a time of economic crisis, the message comes with greater importance than ever.
Speaking on the Parenting Hell podcast, Martin also explained that present giving was originally a form of “social banking” in which older members of society would give gifts or money to younger members to help them get started in life. But he says Christmas is a “zero sum game” in which people of all backgrounds exchange gifts of similar value with each other, spending money on items which are not necessarily wanted out of social convention.
He said this means people are effectively deciding how to spend each other’s money. Martin said: “Especially when you’re skint, Christmas gift giving can be really difficult and one of the best gifts you can give is the gift of releasing people from the obligation of having to buy for you.
“People always say ‘what about the gift of giving though?’. Well if you put pressure on someone who’s got less than you to buy something back for you, don’t say ‘oh you don’t have to, it’s fine’ – they’re going to.
“You are obligating them to do it. Actually you are potentially mis-prioritising their finances and making them buy a tie when they would to feed their children with their money. So we have to be careful about spreading the web of who we give gifts to when it comes to Christmas.”
On the topic of Christmas, Martin also discussed his attitude towards Father Christmas. The Money Saving Expert is Jewish which he says gives a different perspective to many.
Martin joked he struggled with the idea of hard working parents buying presents for their children and then giving the credit to “this old fat guy with a beard”. He said that on a more serious note, he also struggled with the idea that children are told to behave well to get presents but then see children from richer families get more presents – with the implication that they’ve been better.
He said: “I know lots of their parents talk to their kids about it and they manage and they change their messages and Father Christmas only buys one present and they buy the big present and it doesn’t seem to have warped us as a society. But if you were to set it up as a concept that you were going to do it today, and take the tradition out of it, it’s a bloody awful concept.
“That somebody else, some stranger is buying your kids presents and judging whether they’re good or bad and the richer children tend to get bigger and better presents is just not a good concept.
“But of course it’s a wonderful happy tradition that gives everyone joy and love in life so I’m not criticising it too much.”
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