And so here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun. Well, okay, Christmas is not actually here at all and November has seldom – if ever – been described as the month of universal fun.
But we are where we are and there is no escaping the fact that where we are is considered by many the start of the festive season with the Halloween costumes now making their way to landfill and all the uneaten treats from last Thursday getting mouldy.
Already shops in towns and cities around the country are festooned with baubles and lights with Christmas tunes heralding the season to spend lolly and Black Friday season (yes, it is a season now) is almost upon us.
But as the cost-of-living crisis lingers on – despite a dramatic fall in the rate of inflation over recent months – just how much will people be spending this year?
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The answer is almost certainly more than ever before and here are the 12 costs of Christmas that will leave many with a serious financial hangover as we ring the bells for 2025.
1. Even at the height of the post Celtic Tiger depression 15 years ago, Irish people did not scrimp when it came to festive fare, with the Christmas dinner one of the few areas left untouched by the crash. There was no evidence of any easing off in the spending in more recent years either, despite grocery inflation coming dangerously close to 20 per cent at certain points at the height of the cost-of-living crisis.
Last year, consumers spent a record-breaking €1.4 billion on groceries in December, according to retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel. It put the average household spend at an all-time high of €767, up €42 on 2022 and an increase of €170 compared with 2019.
Incidentally, and you might bear this in mind when planning your big shop, Friday, December 22nd was the most popular shopping day, with Irish shoppers spending €92 million in stores, while Saturday, December 23rd was the second-busiest trading day, with €87 million running through the tills.
One of the reasons we are so spendy is our gluttonous – in a good way – nature. Many of us will munch and drink our way through a staggering 6,000 calories on December 25th alone – three times what an adult might consume on a normal day.
And how much does all eating that cost?
We priced a range of items normally eaten on Christmas Day including turkey (€58 for a 7kg beast) ham (€10 for 2kg) biscuits, mince pies, melon, plum pudding, breakfast stuff, vegetables and a few other Christmas Day essentials and we reckon that the cost of a basket of goods to feed a family of five comfortably on the big day with a few leftovers for grazing on the following days was about €225. Adding a further €175 for food on the days before and after Christmas Day takes our total food bill to €400.
2. It is hardly controversial to suggest that Irish people drink a fair bit over Christmas. A case of 20 cans of fairly ordinary beer costs €43, while eight cans of stout that set us will set you back €16.50. Wine, as you may or may not have noticed, has got fierce dear of late, so we bought – in a virtual sense – just four bottles at a total cost of €60, while two bottles of the cheapest champagne we could find set us back €40. We added a bottle of whiskey which was priced at €32.50 and a bottle of gin at €25.
The bill came to €217. Now, obviously we are not expecting our fictitious family to drink all of this alone (please drink responsibly, although there’s judgment here). But they might have some friends or family in over the Christmas. If we add two adults going to the pub twice over the Christmas period and having four pints each (or the equivalent) on each occasion – hardly excessive by Irish festive standards – and the bill for alcohol rises to €321.
3. The cost of a Christmas tree varies wildly depending on where you get it and what class of tree it is. You can probably pick one up in the car park of your local supermarket for 30 quid or spend more than €150 at a Christmas tree farm run by Taylor Swift’s family. For the sake of our sums we will allow €80 to cover it and another €20 for a wreath.
4. If you have some decorations from last year – and all the years before that – you probably won’t spend that much here (although if you want a refresh, can we suggest Penneys? It has some expensive-looking Christmas tat on sale right now). Getting a few new lights and maybe a bauble or two and some festive tablecloths for your tablescape – that is a thing, you see – might set you back €50.
5. You might have to go to a Christmas party. It might be a chore or something you really love but it whichever one it is, it is probably going to cost you a few bob – how many bobs will depend on the generosity or otherwise of your employer and whether the do is fancy or scabby. There might be a free bar all night and a four-course meal or no freebies at all or two pints and a plate of cocktail sausages. The party might be close to home or miles away. For the purposes of this article we are going to assume that two adults end up buying three drinks each over the course of the evening and have to cover the cost of a taxi home – and maybe €100 on new clothes and/or a hairdo. In such a scenario, the total spending comes in at a pretty steep €276.
6. We have said it before and we will say it again – we are all very lucky that Santa Claus takes care of all the children’s presents that find their way under our trees on the night before Christmas. But if our fictional family add to that Santa haul and buy some presents for each other as well, it will all add up. We are going to allow €500 all in for all presents. This will be wildly excessive for some families and laughably little for others but it is what it is.
7. If there are visits to Santa and pantomimes on the cards, they will have to be paid for too. Five tickets to see Peter Pan in the Gaiety (in November) would have set us back €270 (a price which includes a €30 Ticketmaster booking fee) last Tuesday. The cost of a visit to Santa varies wildly but if we allow €20 per child – and we have three children – the cost of the panto and the Santa visit comes in at €330 – a price which doesn’t include so much as a bag of Tayto or a hot chocolate on the way home.
8. Christmas cards are still a thing for many people. A packet of 10 national stamps costs €13.50 and if you send 20 cards and pay just 50 cent on the cards, the cost will climb to €36.50
9. Whether you like it or not, Christmas pyjamas and jumpers are also a thing and there is simply no escaping it. You can get them for no more than €15 in some shops but if you buy five people in your family a jumper and jim jams that still comes to €150. We are not even going to price any gúna nuas or nice shirts you might want to invest in for visits and the like.
10. Irish people pay more than almost all other Europeans on heating and lighting their homes, with the prices seldom more pronounced than they are at Christmas time. We are going to presume that you do not have your house bedecked like a Las Vegas casino from the start of November to the end of January, although if you do, more power (literally) to you. No matter what, energy costs will spike in the weeks ahead and we are going to allow an additional spend of €60 to cover it all.
11. If you want to visit relatives either down the country or in the city you’ll need to get there. A return trip cross-country from Dublin to Cork will cost you about €100 in petrol or diesel.
12. We are a giving people and never more so than over Christmas, so we will allow another €100 to be spent on direct donations and contributions to flag days and carol services.
So, when we tot up all these costs – in the full knowledge that it will be more than some people spend and less than others do – the price of an Irish Christmas for a fictional family of five will come in at a fairly eye-watering €2,373.50 And we haven’t allowed so much as a euro for the ringing in of the new year.
Happy Christmas, everyone.
