Every year, many families across the world celebrate Christmas and have a tradition of giving children with special Christmas gifts.
Critics have decried the commercialization of the Christmas season for long, although the tradition of buying gifts for children and young adults precedes the corporate marketing efforts that have largely hijacked the true spirit of the festive season.

Christmas Gifting To Children: The Tradition

Donating gifts to poor children as Christmas charity started only after gift-giving to the children of one’s own family and friends became a common ritual.
Gifting in general is not according to ‘good behaviour’ and does not have an exclusive link to the Christian faith.

The Holidays Mean Gifts For Children

Gift giving for children during Christmas started in New York City in the 1800s when the holiday was ‘reinvented’ as a family bonding time that integrated the various home decoration and shopping rituals.
When the city’s population grew ten times from 1800 to 1850, city planners and the elites feared that the street revelry done by ‘commoners’ would be a problem for them during the holidays, and started to focus the celebrations to be done at homes only.

Christmas Gifting To Children: The Origin

<ul>
<li>New traditions were formed by borrowing existing rituals and traditional activities based on Dutch customs from New Amsterdam.</li>
<li>A popular poem put forward by Clement Clarke Moore called The Night Before Christmas in 1823 first mentioned the tradition of children receiving presents on Christmas.</li>
<li>As formal public education for young adults had yet to emerge, most young Americans from the emerging middle class in the city were encouraged to celebrate at home, something which aligned with the elite’s interests to ‘domesticate’ the Christmas season.</li>
</ul>

Gift Giving: Winter Holiday Rituals

As the toy industry, children's books and magazines began to emerge in the 1820s, parents were happy to see these mediums as being instructional and personal at the same time. 
Consumer products spread wide in other American cities and parents could not even control the kids’ access to items targeted at them by corporates.

The American Corporate Engine For Kids

<ul>
<li>During the 1860s, cartoonist Thomas Nast created a warm, grandfatherly character who had many toys for kids, changing the image of Saint Nicholas, who was earlier portrayed as a jolly elf.</li>
<li>The December 1868 issue of Hearth And Home published the first new ‘old jolly uncle’ Santa Claus figure.</li>
<li>Christmas giving started in full swing in a few decades from then, with marketers taking advantage of this new gifting frenzy.</li>
</ul>

Gift Giving: Santa Claus Enters

In 1800s New York, the overlapping interests of middle-class families and the wealthy produced a cultural practice that’s still in place today.

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Personal Development

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Marketing & Sales

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Money & Investments

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Society, Arts & Culture

Why Do Children Get Presents on Christmas, Anyway?

People will tell you to find your purpose or your passion. But we are multifaceted beings with many gifts, talents, interests, and ideas. Yet we are put under pressure to have this one purpose or one passion.
We will grow and shift so much in our lifetime that we can expect our desires and purpose to evolve too.

We don't have only one purpose or passion

Instead of concentrating your energy on one purpose or passion, try to focus your energy on bringing your passion and purpose to everything you do. Ask yourself:
<ul>
<li>What type of kindness, care, joy, and patience must you use to bring purpose and passion to your relationships?</li>
<li>What level of openness and curiosity should you have to bring meaning to tasks?</li>
</ul>

Bring your drive to everything you do

Everyone has had jobs they didn't like on the way to finding the job they do like.
Regardless of the job you do now, remain curious. Continuously try to see what this work experience can teach you.

Learn from every situation

Our greatest sense of purpose or passion does not have to come from our 9-to-5 job. It can, but does not have to. 
Sometimes a job is just how we pay our bills, and that is fine. Focus on who you are after your workday is over.

Your 9-to-5 job and your identity

We are all such multilayered beings with an abundance of gifts, talents, interests, and ideas. Poet and author Cleo Wade asks: So why are we putting the pressure on ourselves to have one purpose or one passion?

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Career

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Problem Solving

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Business

Don’t have a single purpose or passion? That’s OK

The holidays are usually filled with joy, celebration and the giving of gifts.
Having a financial plan in place will enable you to be less stressed and get through the holidays with your finances intact.

Budgets and holiday celebrations

Our emotions are often more intense during the holiday season. Marketers are experts at using those feelings to make you buy things.
<ul>
<li>Make a rule for yourself: If an ad on the internet suggests a product to you, don't buy it.</li>
<li>Treat your emotions as if they are people. It can help you to detach from that emotion and be more mindful when you buy gifts.</li>
</ul>

Chat with your emotions

Ask yourself what you think a realistic amount is to spend on gifts for yourself and others. It should be a number that you can realistically afford without dipping into your savings or creating credit card debt.
Then do your best to stick to your budget without getting caught up in consumerism. One strategy could be to use your travel funds. If you've cancelled a trip, you could redistribute a portion of those dollars for gifts.

Create a holiday budget

For those who are able to see your family in person this holiday season, you can save money by doing a white elephant gift exchange instead of buying gifts.
Another fun activity is cooking a special meal or playing old fashioned charades.

Start a new tradition

Experiences often stand out over possessions in our memories. You can explore a nearby park or nature center with your friends and family, ice skate, ski, visit a zoo, or any number of other activities. 
Online, you can host a talent show or take a virtual craft course. The memory of doing a tutorial together and the funny mistakes you made, will stick for a lifetime.

Focus on experiential gifts

Four budgeting hacks from a financial advisor.

How to Get Through the Holidays Without Going Broke

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both…I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Leaders should choose a decision-making model before moving into problem-solving.
Good choices at defining moments on important matters make all the difference for people, organizations, and societies. Every time you are in front of a defining and complex problem, you have a pivotal choice to make in how to find solutions and execute decisions.

Deciding how to make good choices

<ul>
<li>The hub-and-spoke decision-making model. It's likely you don't have enough experience, brainpower, or time to succeed. The way forward is using a small group of elite talent, traditional experts, or a consulting team and having them set the course. This model uses interviews and read-outs to provide all the information and perspectives required to draw solutions. The process can take a long period of time.</li>
<li>Many-to-many decision-making model. You are engaging the talent in and around your organization. Whatever they are missing can readily be filled by external experts. The way to proceed is to ensure interactions between many specialized people in ways that combine their knowledge and talent to create unique recommendations. This model generates a high-volume of high-quality conversations. Speed to execution and change is the norm.</li>
</ul>

Two decision-making models for tough challenges

<ul>
<li>Frame the challenge or problem as a question. "What must we do now to become number one in commercial lending?"</li>
<li>Carefully consider all the people who can meaningfully answer the question and involve many who will need to execute them.</li>
<li>Don't tell people what to explore in answering the question. Let them decide what they need to discuss to arrive at solutions. Spend ten percent together in collectively setting the agenda.</li>
<li>Appoint a few people to each agenda item, and a few to coach them on doing better.</li>
<li>Conduct two or three rounds of meetings on each agenda item. Intentionally build on insights, ideas, and conclusions in follow-up meetings.</li>
</ul>

Applying the Many-to-Many decision-making model

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Before Making Decisions, Decide How to Decide

These terms sound very similar and are often used interchangeably in everyday conversations.
<ul>
<li>Efficacy means getting stuff done. (Related question: Is it working?)</li>
<li>Effectiveness means doing the right things. (Is it working well?)</li>
<li>Efficiency means doing things right. (Is it working in the most economical way?)</li>
</ul>

Efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency

Efficacy is mostly used in a scientific setting. Efficacy is the ability to create an anticipated effect.
For example, a specific medication that improves a patient's symptoms in an ideal environment has demonstrated efficacy.

Efficacy: Getting stuff done

Efficacy is not always enough. Medication that improves a patient's symptoms under ideal conditions is technically getting things done, but not always the right things. 
Effectiveness in clinical trials is about how well a treatment works in the real world, not just in perfectly controlled conditions.

Effectiveness: Doing the right things

Once you find an effective solution, you can try to improve it, or make it more efficient.
Efficiency is about doing this in the most economical way in terms of time, energy, or money.

Efficiency: Doing things right

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Health

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Science & Nature

The difference between efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency

Being frugal is being economical with your choices in food and/or money. It is often correlated with being thrifty. However, frugality isn't a sustainable choice for many since plenty of people have difficulty changing their "I want it now" mindset. 
Although being frugal can be helpful, it is not sufficient enough to help you reach your financial goal.

The Concept of Frugality

<ul>
<li>The short-term decisions, impulsive buying, and the "I want it now" mindset is hindering every progress we make away from achieving our financial goals. </li>
<li>We constantly spend on things that have little to no value for ourselves, such as lattes, daily pizza dinners, and even beer. </li>
<li>We aren't consciously thinking about our money and the repercussions of each and every single choice we make.</li>
</ul>

Frivolous Spending

The people who are aware of this method are able to achieve their financial goals without much stress and still spend on the things they love. Here are the things they do:
<ol>
<li>Sit down and extensively think and detail their expenses and where they plan on spending their money and have guilt-free spending</li>
<li>Set up a high-interest savings account to lessen the hassle of deducting money monthly</li>
</ol>
Money is not only for us to save and pinch but also for us to enjoy.

Conscious Spending

Conscious spending

Most of us understand probability and the likelihood of certain things to happen, or not happening, but still do not fully believe in it. For us, it’s about right and wrong, black or white. 
Example: Nate Silver(a numbers guy) said in 2016 that Hillary Clinton has a 72 percent chance to win. This didn’t mean he was wrong when Clinton lost, but most people believed he was.

Probability

<ul><li>The pandemic death toll predictions are probabilities but the newspapers keep them as benchmark numbers which will be held against the experts.</li><li>In investing, stock predictions that come true are hailed on CNBC, as if those people have some superpower.</li></ul>

Black And White

Probability gets sidelined because: <ul><li>People want certainty, not accuracy. It’s more appealing to make them feel better(with lies, if required) than to give them cold, hard data.</li><li>There are not many chances to measure our prediction skills, with sufficient sample sizes taking long to play out.</li><li>People don’t really understand what odds mean, as their beliefs and preferences of what should happen, takes precedence over probability.</li></ul>

Ignoring Probability

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Leadership & Management

Why We're Blind to Probability · Collaborative Fund

From a legal perspective, dishonesty is the idea of cost-benefit analysis. When people think about being dishonest, they wonder what can be gained or what can be lost. If the cost of lying is too high, they are not going to be dishonest.

The prevalent theory of dishonesty

People often feel the need to rationalize their dishonesty. The danger is taking that first step. 
The story of Joe Papp, an Olympic cyclist falls into this category. Papp consulted his physician, who wrote Papp a prescription for erythropoietin (EPO), a cancer treatment that increases the production of red blood cells. Papp injected himself, but also imported and distributed EPO to his team and to other teams. This essentially made him a drug dealer.

The slippery slope

People that are required to put their signature at the top of a document instead of the bottom are more likely to provide truthful information. 
They are confirming that the information they’re about to provide is true before they have a chance to falsify it.

Morals or ethics tilt behaviors

Before Dan Ariely launches into explaining the science behind dishonesty, he tells an amusing story: God goes to Sarah and says, "You're going to have a child." Sarah laughs and responds, "How can I have a child when my husband is so old?" God then goes to Abraham and tells him, "You're going to have a child."

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Communication

The Truth About Lying

Black Friday is the conventional starting day for the holiday shopping season.
Historically, it’s also been the best day to find great deals on the year’s hottest toys, games, and electronics.

Why Black Friday Is So Popular

<ul>
<li>In the middle of the 20th century, Thanksgiving parades drew crowds in most major cities and in some of the smaller towns too. Many were sponsored by local or national retailers. Back in the day, that meant mostly department stores.</li>
<li>By attaching their names to the most visible events on the preholiday calendar, department stores reminded their customers that they were open for business in the coming holiday shopping season.</li>
<li>Over time, Thanksgiving parades came to mark the unofficial start of that season.</li>
</ul>

The 20th Century: The Parade of Sponsors

<ul>
<li>Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday of November since 1863 until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November (starting with 1941), influenced by the request of a powerful coalition of retailers.</li>
<li>When Thanksgiving fell on November 30, it left only 24 holiday shopping days and this worried retailers who reasoned that busy holiday shoppers would simply shop less in a shorter season.</li>
<li>They promoted the idea that a longer holiday shopping season would be good for the American economy.</li>
</ul>

The Modern Holiday Shopping Calendar

<ul>
<li>In 1869, two oligarchs conspired to corner the American gold market, which was at that time the basis for the U.S. dollar.</li>
<li>Their plan was so complex and the plot finally unraveled on Friday, September 24, sending U.S. financial markets into a tailspin, ruining countless investors, and tanking the broader economy.</li>
<li>That dark day came to be known as “Black Friday.”</li>
</ul>

The Term “Black Friday”

Black Friday wasn’t a great day for the police departments in mid-20th-century Philadelphia. By the 1960s, locals had taken to calling the chaotic day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday.”
In 1950s Philadelphia, Thanksgiving weekend was a mob scene. The Army and Navy college football teams celebrated their fierce rivalry each year with a neutral-ground clash in Philly on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The day before, thousands of people from surrounding communities – as well as Army or Navy devotees from farther afield – flooded the city in anticipation of the big game. They took the opportunity to stock up on clothes, home goods, and other giftable items at central Philly’s many retail shops and department stores.

Why Black Friday Is “Black”

<ul>
<li>The day after Thanksgiving was a natural time for shoppers to head into town and hit the department store. Most families were still together from the prior day’s feast, and few middle-class folks were required to work.</li>
<li>Big-city shopping districts were anchored by department stores. Department stores sold clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, home goods, appliances, and much more.</li>
<li>With a single visit to a department store and a few side trips to specialty retailers, you could take care of your entire holiday shopping list in a single day.</li>
</ul>

The Department Store Model: Holiday Shopping in the Early to Mid-20th Century

<ul>
<li>Today’s retail environment is omnichannel. Shoppers are just as likely – if not more so – to buy stuff at home on their smartphones or laptops than drive to the nearest mall to seek the best deals in person.</li>
<li>The decline of brick-and-mortar retail is devastating the lower and middle echelons of the suburban shopping center market and threatens to deal a last dealt a death blow to the downtown department store model.</li>
<li>Black Friday now happens when, where, and how consumers choose. It’s also happening earlier than ever, with “Black Friday” deals appearing as early as Halloween.</li>
</ul>

Black Friday Today

Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Learn more about how the retail holiday originated and evolved into what it is today.

What Is Black Friday - History of the Holiday Shopping Phenomenon

<ul>
<li>In history, Black Friday was a stock market disaster that happened on September 24, 1869, when, after a period of uncontrolled speculation, the price of gold crashed, and the markets crashed.</li>
<li>The contemporary meaning refers to the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, which has been a holiday itself for many employees. It is known as a day full of shopping deals and heavy discounts and is considered the beginning of the holiday shopping season.</li>
</ul>

Black Friday has two relevant meanings

<ul>
<li>Retailers may spend an entire year planning their Black Friday sales. They use this event as their chance to offer special prices on overstock inventory and discounts on seasonal items, such as typical holiday gifts.</li>
<li>Retailers also offer significant discounts on top-selling brands of TVs, smart devices, and other electronics, tempting customers in the hope that, once inside, they will purchase higher-margin goods.</li>
<li>Consumers often shop on Black Friday for the hottest trending items, which can lead to stampedes and violence in the absence of adequate security.</li>
</ul>

Black Friday and retail spending

There is a theory stating that, when it comes to "Black Friday", the term "black" refers to being profitable, which comes from the old bookkeeping practice of recording profits in black ink and losses in red ink.
Retail businesses should be able to sell enough on this Friday (and the ensuing weekend) to put themselves "in the black” for the rest of the year.

"In the Black"

The term was made-up by the overworked Philadelphia police officers.
<ul>
<li>In the 1950s, crowds of shoppers and travelers flooded Philadelphia the day after Thanksgiving.</li>
<li>Philadelphia stores hosted major sales that day, but the city also hosted the Army-Navy football game on Saturday of the same weekend.</li>
<li>Because of the crowds, traffic cops were required to work 12-hour shifts, and they were not allowed to take the day off.</li>
<li>Over time, the annoyed and fatigued officers started to refer to this dreaded workday as "Black Friday."</li>
<li>The term became popular and spread to store salespeople who used "Black Friday” to describe the long lines and general chaos they had to deal with on that day.</li>
</ul>

The origins of Black Friday

<ul>
<li>Black Friday become the shopping phenomenon event it is today in the 2000s when Black Friday was officially designated the biggest shopping day of the year.</li>
<li>Until then, that title had gone to the Saturday before Christmas.</li>
<li>Today, Black Friday is becoming an increasingly lengthy event: a Black Weekend</li>
</ul>

How Black Friday evolved

<ul>
<li>For online stores, a similar tradition to Black Friday has arisen on the Monday following Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday is seen as the unofficial start of the online holiday shopping season.</li>
<li>The idea is that consumers return to work after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, ready to start shopping.</li>
<li>Online shops often promote their sales prior to the actual day in order to compete against the Black Friday offerings at brick-and-mortar stores. </li>
<li>In terms of sales, Cyber Monday has proven to be a success among shoppers.</li>
</ul>

Cyber Monday competition

<ul>
<li>The sales registered on Black Friday are frequently seen as a litmus test for the overall economic situation of the country and a way for economists to assess the confidence of the average American.</li>
<li>Those who follow the Keynesian hypothesis​ that spending drives economic activity view lower Black Friday sales figures as a harbinger of slower growth.</li>
<li>Some investors and analysts look at Black Friday numbers as a way to gaugemeasure the overall health of the entire retail industry.</li>
<li>Others suggest that it only causes very short-term gains or losses.</li>
</ul>

The economic significance of Black Friday

All about how Black Friday came to be and its impact on our shopping.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

Black Friday Bonanza

Black Friday Definition

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