Written by Esmay Wright
Illustrated by April Yang
Shops are already full of Christmas decorations and it’s left me in disbelief. When did the holiday season become so consumption focused?
If I had grown up in London perhaps I’d be used to the sheer volume of glittery red and green decor on shelves in early-September. But I come from the Northumbrian countryside three hundred miles north of the capital, far away from this version of Christmas.
Back home, the holidays were entirely centred around family. My favourite memories of the season have consistently been the shared moments cooking and chatting. The holiday was a backdrop to the people — a convenient excuse to see each other. Decoration isn’t central; most of what we put up is older than me, layered in sentimental memory, with no intention to follow a trend. We didn’t even put up a tree last year, to illustrate the priority decoration takes in my experience of Christmas.
Meanwhile, what I’ve been exposed to in the city has been the exact opposite. Shops in the West End serve a single purpose: match every projected trend. Minimalism, monochromatic colours, trivial attempts at a vintage look — things I’m sure won’t be popular beyond Boxing Day. It all works, and of course, the West End of London is anticipating a £1.7bn addition to the economy this festive season.
London has always been a fast-moving hub. With a population of 9 million and thousands more tourists, it’s a centre of fashion and shopping. It’s no wonder the things pushed onto shelves follow the trends, but it’s prescriptive of societies increasing focus on consumption over community.
Consumption is superficial. It’s wrapped up in trends and maximising clicks and all that nonsense, but that’s far from the main problem. Consumption is destructive. It is wrecking the planet we live on at an extortionate rate, and it’s becoming more difficult by the day to ignore that – except when it’s Christmas, apparently. The UK has just come out of its hottest summer ever. Widespread droughts, wildfires, and an increasing focus on climate change was not limited to the countryside in Northumbria. However, watching the recent annual consumer frenzy re-emerge, online and in-person, you’d think everybody forgot about the obscene temperatures the second August ended and pumpkin spice hit the coffee shops.
I spent the weeks worrying about fires in neighbouring farms because there wasn’t enough water to keep every field safe. I watched the heat parch our animals’ fields and force us to use our winter reserves to keep them fed. It was a stressful summer, defined by a constant awareness of the changing climate and the looming fact that this may be a cool summer in comparison to what awaits us.
The shift from that anxiety and complete consciousness of impending disaster at home to the detachment of London was like whiplash. There were brief acknowledgements of the state of the parks, but not the same level of stress. Livelihoods weren’t at risk. Animals weren’t going hungry. Life had continued mostly unbothered. The main issues seemed to be trivial, concerning things like sweaty offices and hot tube lines.
The contrast forced me to confront the level of materialism that dominates city life. The constant pressure from adverts and social media, the mere presence of shops encouraging you to buy more and more and more – it’s exhausting. I remember standing in the Sainsbury’s on the corner of Kingsway and staring at a section of candles, crackers, and baubles in mid-September and feeling such an overwhelming sense of disbelief. People will forget the heat and head into Christmas with exuberant shopping lists and no change in behaviour because for them, the heat was a tedious inconvenience, not a threat.
Obviously, there’s many responses to my line of thinking here. People don’t exclusively look forward to Christmas so they have an excuse to shop again. People in London are politically engaged, generally, and climate change did enter the conversation extensively for a time. But, the contrast between the political campaigns and the displayed behaviour is clear to me. I’m also able to recognise that non-Londoners are, of course, imperfect and are not immune to the siren’s call of a trend. I’m wearing Adidas’ sambas as I write this, for one.
However, the issue is certainly easier to identify here than back home. It’s all around you, all the time. At home, during the festive season, a handful of people put up lights, and sometimes there’s a sign telling Santa to ‘stop here’ propped up in a front garden. And, always, the focus is on the gathering of family and community.
In a city where shops, endless pop-ups, and next-day delivery are unbelievably convenient, the barriers to participating in an online trend are practically nonexistent. Instagram and TikTok are saturated with aesthetic shots of Zone One and the West End, alongside the cycle of seasonal drinks, restocks, microtrends, Christmas hauls, collectibles, and increasingly expensive advent calendars, which culminate in a Christmas defined by consumer culture and capitalism. As people’s identity continues to be caught up in online spaces, the problem worsens because your purchases signal a lifestyle, a personality, a socioeconomic position. They drive people to replicate what they either aspire to or align with. It becomes incredibly difficult to resist defining yourself like this in a city like London, where being able to buy a sense of belonging can be reassuring.
Corporations have a greater influence in London, too. The aforementioned shops are a clear sign, but brands’ continuous advertising on the tubes, buses, streets, our online feeds, just adds to my growing feeling that the corporations behind all of this aim to have everybody’s Christmas look identical. A Christmas where there will be no room for family and sentimental pieces, when a camera invites any stranger with a social media account into your house to inspect the aesthetic and newness of your holiday decor.
With the festive season still a couple of months away perhaps I shouldn’t be thinking about it too much, but with the overconsumption of it all being shoved down my throat it’s hard to ignore. Conversely, it’s also elicited all this outrage in me, and has guaranteed I will be incredibly conscious of my purchases in the next few weeks. I don’t want my holiday family time to share a podium with my wish lists, I don’t want to lose the version of Christmas that is near and dear to me to London’s version. My distance from home emphasises these feelings, of course, as many people at LSE can relate to, and serves to add to my exhaustion around the endless shops and content surrounding this place and holiday. I’m tired of being sold this version of a holiday that should have never been about money and greed.
