With the Halloween season coming to a close and Thanksgiving right around the corner, now is the ideal time to reflect on the impact these holidays have. We live in an increasingly consumerist society where every need and want is commodified, and this is especially true when it comes to holidays.
Holiday excitement can make shopping particularly enticing. But when the celebrations are over, the excess waste we create sticks around.Â
This fanaticism for buying items that may not have any long-term use is particularly apparent during Halloween. Many feel a pressure to put together the perfect costumes, which often involve intricate accessories such as wings or crowns not typically worn in everyday life. After Halloween, many of these items go straight to the landfill, either because they’ve served their purpose or because they were damaged during the festivities.
Thanksgiving isn’t the typical holiday associated with consumerism, but even holidays centered around food can create tremendous amounts of waste. People often drastically overestimate the amount of food needed to accommodate their families, and leftovers are only good for so long.
The winter holidays, such as Christmas and Hanukkah, can create even more waste, from discarded gift wrapping and unwanted presents to additional food waste.
Although major holidays draw the bulk of focus, smaller holidays can be just as detrimental from a consumerism perspective. Valentine’s Day, a day meant to be centered around love, has also largely become about exchanging gifts and candy. Easter is filled with egg hunts, which result in massive amounts of plastic eggs being thrown away. As children, the excitement of receiving gifts can oftentimes overshadow the true meanings of these holidays, teaching us to associate celebrations with the things we receive rather than the experiences we share.
As we look to the future, it’s up to us to bring true meaning back to the holidays and avoid falling into the trap of holiday commodification. By recentering holidays around spending time with the people we love, we can help reduce the massive amounts of unnecessary waste that are created each year.
Gathering doesn’t have to mean cooking exorbitant amounts of food or exchanging gifts we don’t need. It can simply mean being grateful for the time we have together.