I think last year sort of some estimates say that we spent between each family on
average between 5 to 800 pounds over the Christmas period so that's a lot of
money it's very much a part of it isn't it because we want to show to people
that we care about them and we want to show love and we tend to do that through
the things we buy but for the high street it's hugely important well the
high street and the internet retailers estimates say somewhere between 20 and
40 percent of annual turn turnover is done over this period of really of just
a couple of months this this time of year might have an impact in terms of
people's budgets might they be in debt perhaps because of Christmas?
Actually the evidence shows that in terms of you know not overspending it's much better
to use cash because the problem about a credit card is is again this is from
psychology we know that credit cards act as a prompt to spend more money you know
if I've got a say a 5000 pound limit on my credit card I might think oh I can
spend that little bit more I also wonder in terms of the the sort of ways in
which we might shot so some people might shop on the high street some people
might shop online the key thing about shopping online is that you can do it 24
hours a day and so convenience is a huge thing but on the flip side of that the
experience of Christmas it's it's a festive atmosphere and so what retailers
are trying to do is to get people back out on the high street so that they'll
be part of that that experience and if things I remember most were not the
presents but but the people I was with to me that's the most important part of
Christmas and so in that sense I kind of wondered sometimes are we going how are
we just buying too much you know one of the things that I sort of think about
Christmas is has it got kind of like so big because actually it's one of another
of these things that come over from America I think that they said that
father Christmas only started wearing red when coca-cola
put it into red it's a it's a big deal isn't it the
American influence as our economies become more a globe and of course we're
going to be impacted by the five different ways of doing Christmas I
suppose but also we see Black Friday for instance which is to be a Friday and now
it goes on for a week back of course the thing about Black
Friday is that that definitely comes from the states and it was I think it
was the first Friday after Thanksgiving and so the idea was that people were
already in the holiday spirit and so they were you could encourage them to
spend going back to the consumer again you know it's we also need to think
about the people who might might not have the disposable income you know
psychologically Christmas for for people that don't have a lot of money is very
very difficult because all around you you're seeing things you know you're
seeing people enjoying themselves and everything we've been doing research
looking at food poverty and we've been talking to a lot of food banks recently
and I think you know you look at statistics and you look at data it's not
that we don't have food available it's just that some people cannot afford to
buy it and how can it be that in this country you know we're so wealthy as a
country how can it be that we still have this level of poverty planning I think
is is can really help people that are more constrained in terms of how much
how much they've got they've got to spend setting a clear budget that's very
important as well as making sure that you don't go over your budget I mean I
think what we really want to be sort of thinking about is reflecting on what
makes a good Christmas and how we can be responsible over Christmas again it goes
back to people who you're with and how you're spending your time with people
and those those people that matter to you to me what makes Christmas magical
is being with the people I care the most about
you