Well, the Christmas season is over. According to advertisers and the media, Christmas started a few days before Thanksgiving Day in the US and ended at roughly 2pm on Christmas Day with the resumption of Boxing Week Sale and January Blowout advertising.

Prior to Christmas Day, along with all the ‘buy, buy, buy’ and ‘save, save, save’ advertising, the media treated us to endless updates on the frantic shopping and spending activities of consumers. Pollsters told us that each shopper would be spending upwards of $1000 each on Christmas this year and that retailers were expecting a banner sales month.

Time for a reality check.

Firstly, we hear this same story every year and retail predictions have steadily been falling short. Secondly, from my observations, average consumers were very reluctant to part with even $5 or $10 let alone $1000 – although, last minute shoppers were clambering after $10 and $25 gift cards on Christmas Eve.

Many of us make our living in retail, media or advertising-related businesses and know that the Christmas season has traditionally been the most lucrative time of the year for retailers but, I believe, that dwindling seasonal sales have partly been the fault of aggressive ‘pushy’ advertising.  Consumers feel pressured and are turned off by too much ‘push’. They have also been convinced over the years that they must spend excessively each year – whether they can afford it or not. So of course, if surveyed, they are going to give that type of response to the pollsters – whether it’s true or not. No one wants to be seen as coming up short when it comes to the Christmas ‘tradition’ of big spending.

On the other hand, the media sends us mixed messages about Christmas. There are heartwarming news stories and a month-long slate of Christmas-themed movies portraying all the finest sentiments, traditional values and magic that are at the heart of Christmas and our Christmas memories.  

One retailer did put its money into those memories this year, while also building on some valuable brand equity from the past. Macy’s sponsored showings of the classic ‘Miracle on 34^th Street’ with an entertaining celebrity-packed commercial that didn’t sell product but instead conveyed a message about the charity the retailer was supporting.

‘Miracle on 34^th Street’ is one of our most popular Christmas traditions and features some very memorable lines about the state of the holiday season. Santa explains that ‘Christmas isn’t just a day, it’s a frame of mind’ while Alfred, Assistant Santa, makes a comment that is even more appropriate today than it was back in 1947: “There are a lot of bad ‘isms’ floating around this world – but one of the worst is commercialism. Make a buck. Make a buck.”

The message behind all my rambling is that maybe next Christmas if we all focus on the Christmas ‘frame of mind’ more and if the media and advertisers let up a bit on the ‘push’, we’ll all be a little merrier. Consumers would definitely be a lot less stressed and enjoy it more and, as a result, retailers might even end up with better sales figures.

Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking but I for one would really love to see more magic and less commercialism in Christmas.