Photo credit: Phoebe Casparian

Christmas and New Years decorations, including a 2026 dog decoration, sit atop of a fluorescently lit shelf at Marshalls, a popular discount department store. The holiday season sparks an annual consumerist uprise, but many find it important to avoid these consumerist trends to search for interpersonal connection. Archer Council of Sustainability adviser Casey Huff said she finds that it is important to be sustainable, even during a time of gifting. “Be mindful about your consumption across the board [with] gift buying, gift wrapping, decor and still make a meaningful holiday,” Huff said.

In the season of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Hanukkah and many other celebrations, holiday shopping can create pressures to buy, buy, buy. For people who value sustainability, finding free and sustainable ways to further connect with loved ones during the holidays can be difficult. Still, many Archer students and faculty members find that celebrating the holidays with traditions and by reusing sentimental items fosters deeper connections within families.

According to Archer Council of Sustainability faculty adviser Casey Huff, the holiday season’s consumerist climate is almost impossible to ignore, and she often feels overwhelmed by the pressures to keep shopping.

“If you exist on this planet, you know that the holidays are tied to family and intangible things [and] our culture also really celebrates this idea of gift giving,” Huff said. “My [social media] feeds have been flooded with gift guides, and there [are] all the emails about Cyber Monday. You can’t deny that there’s … a strong pull [for] the holidays to be associated with gift giving and consumption.”

On social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, influencers share grandiose gift hauls and home decor videos during the holiday season, adding to a growing problem: content-caused consumerism. Ralph Lauren Christmas — a cozy and elevated decorating style — hit TikTok users’ ForYou pages in early autumn. The trend emphasizes the aesthetic appeal of cozy, sophisticated and clean Christmas decorations, similar to those in a Ralph Lauren retail store. The high-class holiday lifestyle of influencers and the constant consumerism they promote draws attention to materialism-derived happiness, rather than the true meaning of the holiday season: connection, reflection and giving.

Despite the consumerist surge the holiday season may bring, students and faculty find many ways to enjoy the holidays in a festive, connected and environmentally conscious way. According to a survey conducted by The Oracle, seasonal shopping is a popular activity among Archer families, as 92% of student respondents participate in holiday decorating and 85% participate in shopping and gift giving. Decreasing their contributions to the issue of annual consumerist spikes, 91% of respondents said they reuse old decorations every year.

Seventh grader Sadie Kay’s family has passed down Christmas decorations and ornaments for generations; many of the ornaments hanging on her Christmas tree were made by her mother. Kay said she enjoys her family’s tradition of celebrating the holidays through cherished items and adding new ones to continue the tradition.

“We have a lot of ornaments that [my mom] made when she was little … and each year, my brother and I each get a new ornament from my grandma. So I have some ornaments that were made in 1980 and some that were made in 2025,” Kay said. “I think it’s very important because all these memories come together during the holidays.”

Edie Wyles (’27) partakes in many gift-giving activities with her family, and many have very strong sentimental value and have helped her grow closer with her family. Wyles’ memorable gift exchanges take place on Christmas Eve, when her mom gifts her and her sisters matching pajama sets.

“We’ve been doing it since I was very young, and it just became a tradition,” Wyles said. “I always love it because it was a cute way for [me and my sisters] to match, and it always made Christmas morning even better because we were all in our new pajamas.”

Huff said her family goes “all out” to decorate their home for the holidays. However, because much of her life’s work focuses on sustainability, she finds it important to be environmentally conscious, even when it is easier to slip into the consumerist mindset of the holiday season.

“I have inherited a lot of now what we would consider “vintage” decor from my grandmother when she passed away and the stuff my mom no longer wants,” Huff said. “My partner’s family has gifted us stuff as well, and we’re pretty intentional about everything we buy; we reuse and put out year after year. So we might change the way the displays look, but we always use the same items.”

In 2025, the National Retail Federation projected overall holiday sales in America to surpass one trillion dollars, a massive increase from the 2024 holiday season, which has a gross of $976.6 billion. According to CNBC, as pressures to buy new items increase and holiday spending begins to snowball, finding sentimental and sustainable ways to celebrate the holidays can be tricky. 

The holidays have long been associated with giving, but some feel that the personal connections traditionally formed through these exchanges are becoming less central. In a materialistic era, Huff said she believes it is important to have a balance between allowing yourself to give in to certain consumerist trends, but to counteract your impulses with reminders of the importance of the holidays.

“All of us are imperfect environmentalists, so don’t ever shame yourself if you have to have that new Santa statue from TJ Maxx. You do you, of course, because I do think that the holidays are tied so tightly to family traditions,” Huff said. “So I understand the importance of honoring those traditions, but I do think that both can coexist, that you can be sustainable, but you can also reuse what you have.”

Social media’s effects on consumerism have had a negative impact, but Huff believes the solution to reducing harm done to the environment and the consumerist cycle during the holidays is searching for things of sentimental value within yourself and others.

“Step away from social media. Do not fall prey to trend cycles or the pressure to have new stuff,” Huff said. “You, with just a little bit of creativity or maybe one new thing, can breathe new life into your existing decor, just by switching it around and making very minimal tweaks. I think that that’s actually the fun part.”