For many of us Christmas is meant to be a time of celebrating, spending time with family and buying gifts. I was walking around a lot of shopping malls this Christmas in South Africa and yes, there were a lot of people shopping for gifts and queues in the large shops were longer than any other time of the year, but compared to previous Christmas periods, 2007’s Christmas ‘queues’ were shorter than before. This leaves to me to ask the question, “Why were they shorter? Did someone steal Christmas away from us?”

It is a fact that consumers in South Africa have been under financial pressure in the build-up to 2007’s Christmas. Prices of almost everything were going up on a monthly basis in 2007 and by the time it came to buy gifts for Christmas, there is only so much one could buy with the money they have available. Most consumers get paid their annual bonuses at work just before Christmas so that they have some disposable money to spend on holidays and gifts for Christmas but with the high interest rates being experienced in South Africa, those wise enough took their bonuses and paid off some off their debts rather than going out shopping.

In the past, consumers would use their credit cards for Christmas gifts and holidays but very few were able to afford doing that this Christmas. With a prime lending rate of 14.5%, spending on holidays and gifts on credit would have been a very expensive option.

I felt that the spirit of Christmas was missing this past Christmas and it largely due to the fact that everything was very expensive and not many people could afford everything they would have wanted to buy or do for Christmas. One can not really blame the retailers for charging high prices as they look forward to this time of the year as their busiest time as they know consumers want to shop. One thing I have seen though in South Africa is from here on out, prices of some goods in shops are going to be ‘slashed’ as retailers can see that the consumers have spent all they have over Christmas and now they will generate very little sales unless they slash their prices. So for those of you who did not spend a lot over Christmas and still have those few Rands and cents leftover, just hang onto them and wait for the ‘Post-Christmas’ sales to kick in.

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