The December Pull: Why We Overspend, Overcommit, and Seek Belonging During the Holidays

It’s December 10th.

You’ve already spent more than you planned. You’ve said yes to another holiday gathering even though you’re exhausted. You’re scrolling past images of perfect trees, coordinated outfits, and joyful family moments, and something in you feels behind.

What’s driving this isn’t a lack of discipline or willpower.
It’s a powerful mix of attachment needs, inherited family expectations, and the targeted messages of holiday culture.

December doesn’t just bring celebrations. It activates our desire to belong, to be seen as good or generous, to meet expectations, and to avoid disappointing the people we care about. When those needs come online, our choices are shaped by more than intention alone.

How Attachment and Family Systems Shape the Season

Attachment forms early. It’s not about blame or diagnosis. It’s about how closeness, safety, approval, and belonging were experienced in our families.

For some people, the holidays feel relatively spacious.

When the Holidays Feel Spacious

• relationships feel secure

• traditions feel flexible

• boundaries are respected

• love doesn’t need to be earned

• expectations are clear or minimal

For others, December brings a familiar kind of pressure.

When Old Family Systems Are Activated

• pressure to perform gratitude

• pressure to keep the peace

• pressure to host, give, or overextend

• pressure to meet unspoken expectations

• pressure to hold the family together

Even adults with their own homes, careers, and families often slip back into familiar roles: the responsible one, the giver, the organizer, the one who smooths tension or makes things “nice.”

This isn’t a personal failure.
It’s attachment meeting tradition.

Unmet Needs: When Emotional and Material Realities Collide

The holidays don’t just stir emotions. They also highlight material realities.

Rising costs.
Unequal access to resources.
The desire to give children what we didn’t have.
The fear of falling behind.

For many families (especially immigrant families and communities shaped by colonialism and capitalism) December has long meant stretching, sacrificing, and doing more with less. Survival and dignity often depended on appearing “okay,” even when resources were thin.

Emotional and material needs become tightly linked:

• wanting children to feel special

• wanting parents to feel proud

• wanting the holiday to feel meaningful

• wanting to look like we’re doing okay

These aren’t shallow wants. They’re rooted in care, history, and survival.

The Marketing Mirror: Why Holiday Ads Tap Our Need to Belong

Holiday marketing doesn’t just sell products. It reflects our longings back to us.

It quietly suggests:

• this is what good parents do

• this is how love is shown

• this is how you keep up

• this is how you belong

These messages land not because we’re easily influenced, but because they echo needs we already carry. December is when people are most emotionally open, reflective, and sensitive to comparison. Marketing is designed around that reality.

Often, what we’re buying isn’t the item itself, but the feeling we hope it will create: reassurance, closeness, pride, or relief.

Aspirations and Isolation: Why Influencers Offer Connection

This is also why influencers have such pull during the holidays.

They don’t just offer recommendations. They offer identity, validation, and a sense of community. When family dynamics feel complicated or traditions feel heavy, it makes sense to look elsewhere for connection.

Curated homes, routines, and lifestyles offer a temporary sense of belonging. Wanting that connection isn’t a flaw. It’s attachment doing what attachment does.

The Scarcity Trap: Why “Opportunity” Groups Peak in December

December is also peak season for MLMs and similar “opportunity” spaces.

They tend to show up when people are:

• financially stretched

• emotionally tired

• craving stability

• longing for hope or a fresh start

They rarely lead with numbers. They lead with belonging, encouragement, and identity.

“You’re not just joining a business.”
“You’re joining a family.”

I understand the pull of this personally.

In my early twenties, I was serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and had taken what felt like a vow of poverty. At the time, it felt principled. I was trying to escape the chaos of my life and the bar industry and build a life rooted in service and meaning. In hindsight, it was also a path far more accessible to people with financial safety nets than I had.

That holiday season, I went home broke and idealistic, and a childhood friend tried to recruit me into Primerica. I was angry. I recognized it as a pyramid scheme, and I remembered how, years earlier, I had almost joined Cutco when I was desperate for money.

I wasn’t going to do that again.

Instead of confronting him directly, I leaned hard into my service identity. I played a kind of secular Mother Teresa, explaining that I couldn’t possibly join because I was committed to a life of poverty and selfless service.

It was half resistance, half performance.

Looking back now, I can see the irony. The MLM pitch and my own devotion to sacrifice were two sides of the same coin. Both offered meaning. Both offered belonging. Both framed sacrifice as a virtue.

That realization came later. At the time, I was just trying to survive December with my values intact.

How Holiday Pressure Strains Family Dynamics

All of this plays out inside family systems.

Gift-giving becomes symbolic.
Spending becomes emotional.
Boundaries blur.
Old conflicts resurface.

Many people overspend or overgive not because they want to, but because they’re trying to preserve harmony, prove love, or avoid guilt.

December quietly asks many of us the same question:

“Am I doing enough?”

A Gentler Way to Be With This Season: Returning to Yourself

The goal isn’t to eliminate the pull of December, but to soften its grip. Awareness creates space.

The next time you feel the pressure rising, you might gently pause and ask yourself:

• What feeling am I hoping this will give me?

• Whose expectations am I responding to?

• Is this about connection, obligation, or both?

• Would I choose this if there were less pressure?

Answering honestly isn’t a judgment.
It’s an act of self-loyalty.

Looking Ahead

December makes visible what’s often operating quietly all year: the ways our choices are shaped by attachment, family systems, cultural expectations, and material realities.

Next month, this series will continue by looking more closely at family loyalty, emotional roles, and why the holidays activate patterns many of us thought we had outgrown. The very patterns many of us didn’t choose — but learned.

For now, gentleness matters.

Some of the needs showing up this month are old.
Some are deeply understandable.
And none of them make you weak.

They make you human.

The Path to Healing

As a clinician, the path to healing is not just one I guide others through, but one that I walk myself every day. It's a journey that has taken me from a place of struggle and hardship to one of stability and success, both personally and professionally. However, along the way, I've come to realize that healing is a complex and ongoing process, and that it's not always a linear journey.

There are moments when I feel like I've "made it." I look at my successful private practice, reflect on the years of hard work I put in from a very young age, and feel a sense of pride in how far I've come. I remember the days when I had to hop the turnstile (because I could barely afford my rent, never mind pay for public transit) and contrast them with my current life in Berkeley, where I can provide for my family without the constant fear of financial instability. Professionally, I feel like I'm coasting through, enjoying the fruits of my labor.

However, there are moments when I’m triggered and my body responds before my mind can catch up. I feel heat rise in my chest, muscles tightening, anger welling up from a deep place. It’s a familiar surge, one that pulls me back to younger versions of myself who had to stay alert, defend themselves, and survive. In those moments, I wonder whether I’m touching old scars or stepping into something genuinely unsafe. I question whether this is regression or simply my nervous system doing what it was trained to do: protect me when something feels threatening, even if the threat isn’t physical anymore.

This intensity of the fight impulse can make me want to yell, gesture big, or push back forcefully. The urge to react is so overwhelming that I find myself immediately reflecting on the thin line between toxic expression and authentic self-protection. Part of me asks whether that’s wrong or whether it’s a natural instinct rising to defend my boundaries. I sit with the tension between honoring my body’s alarm system and choosing how to express it. I ask myself: Is my anger signaling real danger, or an old danger being reactivated? What does it look like to let myself feel the full heat of rage without reenacting harm? These questions live inside me, not because I’m “unhealed,” but because my body remembers and because protecting myself, then and now, has always mattered.

As a clinician, I understand the complexity of these emotions. I know that anger is a natural response to pain and that it's crucial to acknowledge and process it. I know that sometimes “fight” is an essential recipe to create safety. I also recognize the importance of channeling it in a constructive way, without causing harm to others or myself. It's a delicate balance, one that requires self-awareness, self-control, and empathy.

I've come to realize that healing is not about erasing the scars of the past but about learning to live with them and finding healthy ways to cope with the triggers that come my way. It's about acknowledging that vulnerability and pain are part of the human experience and that it's okay to feel them. And yes, sometimes, react to it. In even the messiest ways. It's about understanding that self-expression is important, but it should be tempered with mindfulness and compassion.

In my journey as a clinician, I've learned that healing is hard, but it's also incredibly rewarding. It's a journey of self-discovery, growth, and acceptance, and it's one that I continue to navigate with humility and an open heart. As I guide others through their healing processes, I'm reminded that we are all works in progress, and that it's okay to be imperfect, as long as we strive to be better versions of ourselves every day. The work, as I remind both my clients and myself, is simply to keep navigating the mess with humility and grace.