Merry Christmas: A Brief History of Why We Go Broke Every December (And Why It Doesn’t Matter)
This is an uplifting, positive article about the curious origins of the Christmas Gift.
Somewhere around mid-November, a switch flips in the collective American brain and we all start panic-buying things for people we’re not entirely sure we even like. Uncle Jerry gets another tie. Grandma gets another candle. The kids get whatever toy the algorithm told them they needed. We wrap it all in paper we’ll throw away in thirty seconds and call it tradition.
We stress about budgets. We fight crowds. We refresh tracking pages hoping that package arrives before Christmas morning. We convince ourselves that the quality of our love can be measured in dollars spent and that somehow, if we don’t get exactly the right gift, we’ve failed the people we care about.
But where did this whole thing come from? And does any of it actually matter?
The Romans Started It (Of Course)
Like most things we do in December, gift-giving traces back to the Romans and their Saturnalia festival. They exchanged small gifts called strenae, usually candles, figurines, or gag gifts. It was considered good luck and a way to spread goodwill during the darkest days of the year. The tradition was so ingrained that early Christians couldn’t stamp it out, so they just slapped a new label on it and kept going.
Saturnalia was a wild time. Social norms were flipped upside down. Masters served slaves. Gambling was permitted. People drank too much and said things they probably regretted. Sound familiar? We’ve been doing the same basic routine for two thousand years, just with better wrapping paper and more credit card debt.
The Magi Made It Biblical
Christians eventually justified the gift-giving by pointing to the wise men who brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus. Three guys showed up with presents, and two thousand years later we’re trampling each other at Walmart on Black Friday. The connection is a bit of a stretch, but it gave the church a way to baptize a pagan custom into something respectable.
The gifts of the Magi weren’t random either. Gold represented kingship. Frankincense represented divinity. Myrrh, a burial spice, foreshadowed the crucifixion. These were symbolic, meaningful offerings to a child they believed would change the world. Somewhere along the way we traded that symbolism for Nintendo consoles and gift cards to restaurants nobody actually likes.
St. Nicholas Was a Real Guy
Before he got fat and started working with elves, St. Nicholas was a fourth century bishop in what is now Turkey. The legend goes that he secretly gave bags of gold to a poor man with three daughters so they wouldn’t have to become prostitutes. He literally threw money through their window in the middle of the night like some kind of charitable burglar. That story morphed over centuries into the gift-giving Santa we know today, filtered through Dutch traditions, Coca-Cola marketing, and a lot of shopping mall theater.
The real Nicholas gave anonymously. He didn’t want credit. He didn’t post about it on social media for validation. He saw a need and filled it without expecting anything in return. That’s the part of the story we tend to forget when we’re elbowing strangers for the last discounted television.
The Victorians Made It Mandatory
Gift-giving wasn’t really a universal Christmas expectation until the 1800s. The Victorians, as they did with most things, formalized it, commercialized it, and guilt-tripped everyone into participating. Charles Dickens helped with A Christmas Carol, which basically told everyone that if you don’t give generously at Christmas you’re Scrooge and you’ll be haunted by ghosts. Effective marketing.
By the early twentieth century, Christmas had become an economic engine. Retailers figured out that they could create artificial urgency around gift-giving and people would empty their wallets trying to prove their love through purchases. The holiday shopping season now accounts for something like twenty percent of annual retail sales. That’s not tradition. That’s programming.
When Gift-Giving Goes Completely Insane
For most of us, Christmas means stretching a budget and hoping we got something that won’t immediately end up in a closet or a return line. But for the ultra-wealthy, Christmas is an opportunity to flex in ways that make normal people’s heads spin.
Here are some of the most absurd gifts rich people have actually given:
Beyoncé reportedly bought Jay-Z a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport for around two million dollars. Just a casual car gift between billionaires.
Kim Kardashian allegedly received a two million dollar diamond-encrusted Lorraine Schwartz ring one Christmas. Because apparently normal jewelry is for peasants.
David and Victoria Beckham bought their kids a miniature version of their mansion, a custom playhouse worth around four hundred thousand dollars. A playhouse. For children. Worth more than most Americans’ actual houses.
Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch, once gifted his girlfriend a sixty-five million dollar yacht. As one does.
Some Saudi prince bought his daughter a solid gold rocking horse worth six hundred thousand dollars. A rocking horse. Made of gold. For a toddler who will forget about it in a week.
Tom Cruise reportedly gave multiple friends customized motorcycles worth tens of thousands of dollars each. Nice guy, weird flex.
Kylie Jenner bought her toddler daughter a custom diamond-encrusted Audemars Piguet watch. A watch. For a child who cannot tell time.
There’s a whole world up there where people drop more on stocking stuffers than most families make in a decade. They live in a completely different reality, one where money has lost all meaning and the only way to express affection is through increasingly absurd displays of wealth.
Meanwhile, Back on Earth
While billionaires are buying each other yachts and diamond-crusted baby accessories, the average American family is trying to figure out how to make Christmas work on a budget that was already stretched thin by groceries and rent and gas and all the other expenses that keep climbing while wages stay flat.
And here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter.
The gifts don’t matter. The price tags don’t matter. The perfectly curated Instagram photo of presents stacked under the tree doesn’t matter. None of that stuff is what your kids are going to remember in thirty years. They’re not going to think back fondly on that one Christmas you bought them an expensive toy. They’re going to remember sitting on the floor in their pajamas with people who loved them. They’re going to remember the smell of breakfast cooking and the sound of laughter and the feeling of being safe and warm and wanted.
You can’t buy that. Kylie Jenner can give her toddler a watch worth more than your car and that kid won’t remember it. But your kid will remember you. That’s what matters.
It Really Is Better to Give
Beneath all the consumerism and obligation and credit card debt, there’s something real buried in this tradition. Giving actually does feel better than receiving. Science backs this up. Studies show that spending money on others activates reward centers in the brain more than spending on yourself. There’s a reason the best Christmas memories aren’t about what you got but about watching someone else open what you gave them.
The gift itself doesn’t matter much. It’s the act. It’s saying I thought about you. I know you. I wanted to make your day a little brighter. That’s worth more than whatever’s in the box.
Give what you can. If that’s something homemade, give that. If that’s your time, give that. If that’s just showing up and being present with people who need you, give that. The wrapping paper ends up in the trash. The receipts get lost. The toys break. What remains is the knowledge that someone cared enough to try.
A Word for the New Year
As we roll into another year, I want to leave you with something.
Be kind. Not because kindness is always rewarded, but because the world is hard enough without people making it harder for each other.
Be generous. Not just with money, but with your patience, your forgiveness, your willingness to assume the best in people even when they’re making it difficult.
And for the love of God, stop falling for the tribalist garbage designed to keep us all at each other’s throats. Red team, blue team, left, right, woke, anti-woke, whatever the algorithm is feeding you to keep you angry and engaged and clicking. It’s a distraction. It’s always been a distraction.
While we’re busy fighting each other over pronouns and political parties and whatever outrage is trending this week, the same class of billionaire douchebags keeps running the show. They own the media that makes us hate each other. They own the politicians we think represent us. They fly on private jets to private islands and do things to children that would put any normal person in prison for life, and they get away with it because we’re too busy arguing about red versus blue to notice we’re all getting played by the same people.
They want us divided. They need us divided. A unified population asking questions is dangerous to people with secrets. So they keep us fighting, keep us distracted, keep us convinced that our neighbors are our enemies instead of our fellow victims.
Don’t fall for it. Not this year.
Merry Christmas From the Wise Wolf and Lily
However you celebrate, whoever you’re with, we hope you find a moment of peace this week. Hug your kids. Call your parents. Forgive the family member who always says the wrong thing at dinner. Tell someone you love them before you assume they already know. Life is short and weird and hard, and the people sitting around your table won’t be there forever.
Give something to someone who needs it. Not because you have to. Because it’s good for your soul.
From our little pack to yours, Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for keeping the wolf howling through another year of chaos.
See you in 2026. Stay sharp. Stay kind. And never stop asking questions.
Merry Christmas! Thank you for your work. It’s outstanding! From my family to you and Lilly, Have a very Merry Christmas! Sending Love to all!
Merry Christmas. You two are amazing