The Gift You Can’t Afford to Give: Why the Holidays Pressure Us to Spend Love We Don’t Have
Holiday overspending is rarely about the presents. It’s about what we’re afraid a smaller gift will say about us.
It’s early October, and the holiday machinery is already warming up. The first catalogs show up. One of your relatives texts you to “get a head count for gifts.” You feel the familiar tightening before you’ve bought anything.
Maybe you’re already running the math. What did you spend last year? Who will notice if you spend less? What will your kids think when their cousins unwrap more than they do?
If this feeling arrives every fall, you’re in good company. The tension isn’t a flaw in your discipline. It’s a collision between love, expectation, and fear. It helps to understand it before the season starts.
The Pressure Is Widely Shared
A 2025 Credit Karma survey of 1,013 U.S. adults found that 47% feel stressed about affording the holidays. Thirty-nine percent feel pressured to spend more than they can afford. Among parents, 45% said they’d go into debt to make the holidays special for their kids, and 52% feel they aren’t doing enough to make the season memorable.
The American Psychiatric Association’s Healthy Minds poll (fielded in 2023) found that affording gifts was the top holiday worry, at 51%.
One more finding stands out. A Harris Poll for NerdWallet found that 63% of Americans would like their family’s traditions to be less focused on gifts. Only 20% have discussed or plan to discuss limiting gift spending with family or friends.
Most of us want less pressure, and almost none of us say so out loud.
What the Gift Is Really Carrying
A gift is never only an object. For many people it quietly stands in for something else:
Proof of love. “If I spend less, will they feel less loved?”
Repayment for absence. The parent who worked long hours all year and tries to close the gap in December.
Status management. Not wanting to look like you’re struggling in front of family.
Old scripts. Researchers who study money beliefs, including Brad Klontz and colleagues, describe patterns like money status and money avoidance. These are deeply held beliefs, often learned in childhood, that steer behavior without our noticing.
If you grew up in a home where love showed up as presents, or where a thin Christmas felt like shame, your spending in December may be answering a question from decades ago.
“The bill arrives in January, but the pressure to overspend was never really about December.”
Why Guilt Is a Poor Budget Advisor
Guilt-driven spending has a predictable shape. You overspend to relieve a feeling, the relief fades, and the feeling comes back with interest. In January you are carrying the debt and the shame, which is the pattern we’ve explored in the post on emotional spending.
Couples feel this strain too. One partner wants to give generously, and the other quietly panics about the balance. That is rarely a math problem. It’s two people with different fears about what scarcity or disappointment would mean. If that sounds familiar, marriage counseling can help you talk about the fear instead of fighting about the number.
A Faith Lens: Love Was Never Measured in Receipts
Scripture treats generosity as a matter of the heart. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). That is an invitation to ask what your spending is really serving.
Paul wrote, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other” (Romans 13:8). Love is the one debt we’re meant to carry. Credit card balances are not.
None of this makes generosity wrong. It makes unexamined generosity risky. A gift given from freedom looks different from a gift given to quiet an anxious voice.
Five Steps Before the Season Gets Loud
Name the story. Finish this sentence: “If I spend less this year, people will think ___.” Write down the first honest answer.
Identify who you’re really buying for. For each major gift, ask whether it’s for them, for your image, or for your guilt.
Have the conversation early. Talk with your spouse first, then with family. Something like “We’re simplifying this year” is often met with relief, not offense.
Redefine what a good gift is. Time, a shared meal, a handwritten note, or a tradition can carry real weight for the people who matter most to you.
Plan the January check-in. Put a short, calm money conversation on the calendar now, so the season ends with honesty instead of avoidance.
How Counseling and Coaching Can Help
My approach to financial coaching focuses on the behavioral and relational side of money, not investment or planning advice. Together we look at where your spending patterns came from, what they’re protecting, and how to talk about them with the people you love.
For some people, that work belongs in individual counseling, especially when guilt or shame is part of the picture. My practice is grounded in a Christian worldview and welcoming to people of any faith background.
Start Before the Pressure Does
You don’t have to wait until the cart is full to ask better questions. If the coming season already has you bracing, I’d be glad to help you walk into it with clarity instead of dread. I see clients in Plano and across North Texas, and by teletherapy throughout Texas and Idaho.
SOURCES
Credit Karma. (2025, October 14). Holiday spirit meets sticker shock: Nearly half of Americans feel stressed about affording the season. Survey of 1,013 U.S. adults, fielded October 3–7, 2025. creditkarma.com
American Psychiatric Association. (2023, November 28). Healthy Minds Monthly poll: Holiday stress (Morning Consult, n = 2,204). psychiatry.org
NerdWallet / The Harris Poll. (2025, October 14). 2025 Holiday Spending Report (n = 2,083 U.S. adults). nerdwallet.com
Klontz, B., Britt, S. L., Mentzer, J., & Klontz, T. (2011). Money beliefs and financial behaviors: Development of the Klontz Money Script Inventory. Journal of Financial Therapy, 2(1). PDF
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