Capitalism is Killing the Holidays
A Christmas Eve That Didn’t Feel Like Christmas
At a Safeway on the night of Christmas Eve, “festive” would be the last word to describe the scene.
Announcements over the PA system pleaded with shoppers to check out: “The store is closing in 20 minutes… 10 minutes… 7 minutes… 4 minutes.” “The store is closed, come up to checkout. We have families to go home to as well — happy holidays [rapidly and in passing]”. Lines stretched through aisles to the very end of the store – filled with tired faces, scowling, downturned lips, and sagging eyebrows.
Meanwhile, the checkout lady was in a zombie-like state: swiping one item under the scanner, putting it aside, picking up the next, swiping it, eyes glazed over, mouth slightly agape. “I’m running on a few shots of tequila,” she joked, sticking her tongue out. A few seconds elapsed, and she muttered, “I’m just trying to finish this shit and go home.”
The Holiday Illusion
The sight of the exploited proletarian is not a pretty one. What I saw was not the serene holiday scene we associate with Christmas Eve. Instead, it was a reminder of how the joy of the holidays is being gutted by the capitalist system at the root of our society. For workers, and for consumers, what was once a time for joy and connection is now a shadow of its former self.
Peak Season, No Peace
For workers across the nation, “the happiest season of all” is just a time of extra exploitation. In Amazon, it’s Peak Season: overtime, exhausting and chaotic shifts of 11-12 hours per day, with work reaching 60 hours per week. Leaving workers with no time to breathe, let alone celebrate. The plea for more time with families, just like the one over the Safeway PA system that “we have families too,” is also ignored by corporations. They aren’t doing this because they’re inherently evil; it’s just the nature of the system – profits first. “It’s not personal, it’s just business”. Personal or not, this still means time for memories and holiday joy is sacrificed to the ruthlessly efficient and emotionless altar of profit. For many families with a parent working at Amazon, the Holiday season means more separation due to forced overtime. During the week, workers only see their families for a couple of hours at the end of every day, when they are already exhausted. For workers across the nation, this means that Christmas is becoming less about family or joy and more about survival. All due to a system that depends on endless profit – endless suffering for the worker.
The harm goes beyond the workplace. Companies know they can turn our fondness for the holiday season into profits by encouraging consumerism. With advertisement after advertisement, jingle after jingle, turn the holiday season into a season of spending. Oftentimes, this makes Christmas a burden instead of a blessing for many families. But definitely a blessing for corporations!
When Joy Becomes Stress
It’s not surprising that the holidays are proven to be some of the most stressful times of the year when the joy and love behind them have been circumvented for the sake of profit. This, surely, plays a role in those ugly holiday arguments with employees, where humanity goes out the window, and frustration, hate, irritation, anger, and exhaustion replace care and kindness.
A Billion-Dollar “Season of Giving”
Capitalism’s relentless chase for holiday profit is working. In 2024, holiday retail sales hit over $970 billion, and in 2025, sales are projected to hit nearly $1 trillion.
The celebration of Christmas, for many, isn’t necessarily religious. It’s still ironic that the holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus, who whipped the rich and condemned greed, who said in John 2:16, “stop turning my father’s house into a house of business,” – has been turned into a time of extravagant spending and consumerism, a time for businesses to make record profits off workers’ back-breaking labor. This pattern of profit tarnishing tradition is nothing new. It’s been noted that under capitalism, “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.”
An Anti-Human System
All of this combines to create a Christmas far less happy, a holiday season far less loving and joyful. Just like the pitiful scene I saw at that Safeway. Our holidays are becoming so anti-human because our society is based on an anti-human system. Capitalism demands endless growth, and as long as profit drives economic decisions, this outcome is inevitable. Corporations can’t stop themselves from adding Christmas to the list of “ruined by” capitalism.
Reclaiming the Holidays
But we can. Not by shopping at small businesses, which operate under the same motives of profit, and oftentimes harm workers more; or simply buying less. But by confronting the system that prioritizes profit over people. Such a system, by design, can only ever continue to rob us of our humanity, community, and joy. So to reclaim the holidays, the workers must unite and challenge the capitalist class’s eternal search for profit. The power to stop the machine is in the hands of the working class that moves its cogs.
A Different Kind of Christmas
When the workers fight back, we’ll have a Christmas where the joy of the season isn’t overshadowed by exhaustion and consumerism, where families aren’t torn apart by impossible schedules, and where love and community take the precedence that they deserve. Only then may we all unite in love and community during the holidays. Only then will the holidays be truly happy again.