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.