By Teresė Bernatonytė, LRT RADIO.

“Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more,” the line comes from How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by the American children’s author Theodor Seuss Geisel, first published in 1957. Many know the tale from the popular film adaptations, not the book itself.

Although Geisel criticised social materialism and Christmas as its embodiment as early as the 1950s, his message remains relevant today, when consumerism often overshadows the meaning of the holiday and gifts, discounts and endless queues in shops have become synonymous with Christmas.

A golden season for retail

The Christmas period is one of the most important seasons for retail, particularly in the United States, often seen as a barometer of global consumer trends.

Although the pace of spending has begun to slow, overall retail volumes continue to rise. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), US holiday retail sales in 2025 are expected to exceed one trillion dollars for the first time, an increase of 3.7–4.2% compared with 2024.

What has changed is not so much what people buy, but how they buy it. As online shopping now makes up an ever larger share of festive sales, the trend is clear: commerce is not declining, but changing shape, increasingly moving into the digital space.

Read more: LRT.LT