It’s Okay To Not Give Gifts This Year

6 min readNov 24, 2020

Olivia Harrison

Thu, November 19, 2020, 9:00 AM EST

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with my mom on the phone. It was a casual conversation, catching up on what was up with both of us, as well as other members of our family. When the topic of Christmas came up, though, I felt an immediate shift. My mom became a bit more reserved; was she steeling herself? “How would you feel about not exchanging gifts this year?” she asked. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

It turned out that my mom had been nominated by our other family members to broach this potentially sensitive topic with me. As the youngest, I’ve always been the one to cling most tightly to our various family traditions, even as my older brother and sister lost interest. I was so adamant about not giving in to the truth about Santa Claus for fear that it would ruin the holiday, that the rest of my family was forced to play along until I was 15. So it’s really no surprise that they were nervous about floating the idea of doing away with gifts altogether. But, in 2020, I’m more than ready to throw out every remotely stressful custom — no matter how cherished — in the name of making things a little bit easier.

I’m not alone in this, and my family isn’t the only one to see gift-giving as a nerve-racking pursuit this holiday season. According to a study conducted by Qualtrics on behalf of Credit Karma, 59% of the 1,034 American adults surveyed plan to alter their gift-giving practices this year, with 40% limiting the number of gifts they’re purchasing, 36% placing price limits on gifts, 34% striking everyone but family off their lists, 18% refusing to participate in workplace gift exchanges, and 16% not buying gifts for anyone at all. WalletHub’s Coronavirus and Holiday Shopping Survey of 1,500 respondents, too, showed that nearly one in three people are foregoing holiday gift exchanges altogether this year due to COVID-19.

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Olivia Harrison

Thu, November 19, 2020, 9:00 AM EST

For many, this decision to not exchange gifts was influenced by financial concerns. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed for Credit Karma said they feel more financially stressed about the holidays than they did last year; and 34% said they feel like they’re financially unprepared for the holidays, with 50% of them specifying that they are worried about affording gifts. This, of course, makes sense given that the coronavirus pandemic has led to skyrocketing unemployment rates, wide-spread financial insecurity, and a collapsing economy. In the past eight months, many Americans have struggled to cover basic living costs like rent, so participating in Secret Santa gift swaps not only isn’t a priority, it isn’t even really possible.

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