A Hallmark Christmas, Through the Dark Lens of the Trump Economy
A lump of coal from President Scrooge
[The NYT assigned me a column about Christmas and affordability in the Trump economy but also assigned approximately four million other columns for the holidays and so mine didn't make it in. But here it is, đ¨EXCLUSIVELYđ¨ on ElizabethSpiers.com, lol.]
Itâs peak holiday season, so all across the country, women in the 34 - 55 age bracket are settling in with hot cocoa and popcorn to consume one of our storied American cultural products: the Hallmark Christmas movie. Even if youâve never seen a Hallmark Christmas movie (or its close cousin, the Lifetime Christmas movie) youâre probably familiar with its arc and archetypes. A single career woman in her 20s or 30s goes back to her small picturesque hometown for Christmas and bumps into a hot and also conveniently single working class man from her past. They complete some challenge together (saving the beloved local coffee shop with a big holiday cookie fundraiser) and realize that theyâre meant to be together. The erstwhile big city career woman leaves her job to be with the hot man who can fix household things and maybe they run the coffee shop together. They decide all of this before they have their first relatively chaste kiss.
In part because I co-host a financial news podcast, I cannot help but view this Hallmark narrative in the context of the affordability crisis. (I also like to ruin movies for people and I nearly destroyed my husbandâs enjoyment of Boyz in the Hood by pointing out that there are scenes where people are raking leaves in yards with no trees.)
Through the dark lens of modern economics and consumer spending data, I see a different version of the Hallmark Christmas movie, perhaps streaming on the horror network, Shudder. In it, our protagonist, letâs call her âMadysynâ (80% of Hallmarkâs protagonists are white and sheâs probably a late millennial), is considering moving out of the big city and leaving her well paid job. Not because she is feeling empty and depressed and overwhelmed, though! She is thinking of moving back to her tiny hometown because she is being priced out of New York City where the average rent for a one bedroom apartment is $4,038 a month. New York is always expensive, so initially she thinks maybe itâs the city thatâs the issue and she checks prices elsewhere. Turns out the national average is $1,713 a month. Thatâs better, but holy crap, itâs still 35.1% higher than before the pandemic.
This would be less of a problem overall if her general expenses hadnât gone up, too. Food prices are up by about 3% from last year, and 17.9% more since January of 2022. At least she's allergic to eggs. Gas prices are down, but like most New York City residents, she doesnât have a car, so itâs not a relief. In fact, sheâll have to buy one before she moves, and used car prices are up because supply is low and car insurance is up 16.5% since last year.
Sheâs hoping that maybe she can afford to actually buy a place in an area with a lower cost of living, but interest rates are too high at the moment, and homeowner insurance rates increased by 24% from 2021 to 2024. (Economists donât build the cost of insurance into inflation calculations, and if they did, itâd be significantly higher.) Ugh. Madysyn hasnât even packed her bags yet, and this isnât looking great.
But maybe she shouldnât overthink it. New homeownership is at an all time low anyway and the median age of a first time homebuyer is 40, so as a platonic Hallmark protagonist of prime childbearing age sheâs got a few years left. Besides, thereâs talk of a 50 year mortgage now. It's stupid, and pretty much guarantees that she'd making interest payments without putting a dent in the principal forever, but people are talking about it.
Sheâs thinking about this when her mom calls her to tell her thereâs a boy she knew from high school who asked about her this morning at the local coffee shop. âDo you know what you have to pay for a cup of coffee these days?â mom says. âIn my day, we dumped a fistful of Folgerâs into some boiling water and it cost us almost nothingâand we liked it!â
Madysyn knows thereâs some truth to momâs complaint this time. Coffee bean prices increased by 35% between August and November thanks to President Scroogeâs tariffs. Mom also says the local is in danger of closing because food-away-from home inflation is up 3.7% and Madysynâs hometown is largely populated by people in the middle and lower half of the K shaped economy.
âMaybe you could help them,â mom suggests. âUse your social media skills and get them on Facegram, or TikTack or whatever itâs called.â Madysyn is a social media editor for an influencer agency and is good at what she does, but her boss recently demanded that she learn how to incorporate AI into her workflow, and every time she talks to her chatbot, she feels sheâs training her replacement.
âAnd how was Tanner?â Madysyn says, looking to change the subject, and also curious about the boy from high school. âHeâs scruffy, good looking, and ready to save Christmas,â says mom. âHe just needs to meet the right burned out financially precarious woman between the age of 23 and 35.â
âHuh,â says Madysyn. âSo he's single? What does he do for work?â
âWell, he is single, but his wife died a couple of years ago.â mom says. âCybertruck fire. And heâs a soybean farmer, so itâs been tough. China was buying a lot of soybeans, but now theyâre buying âem from Brazil, which makes total sense given the supply chain and tariff challenges and general complexity of the current sociopolitical environment under President Scrooge.â
Poor Tanner, thinks Madysyn. He probably voted for Scrooge, but he didnât ask for this. âAnd heâs got an adorable five year old daughter,â mom adds. âShe told me she wants a doll for Christmas.â
âJust one doll?â says Madysyn.
âAs far as I know,â says mom. Well, that might be do-able, Madysyn thinks. President Scrooge has said that maybe this year children will have to have two dolls instead of thirty. She doesnât know any children whoâve ever received thirty dolls, or even two at a time, but one doll is below the presidential two-doll limit, so maybe Tannerâs daughter can have a nice Christmas.
And maybe things will get better. After all, President Scrooge says that affordability is a âhoax.â âEconomists got it WRONG,â President Scrooge posted to his social media platform, noting that he and âsome other Geniuses,â got it right. âThe SUCCESS is due to Good Government, and TARIFFS.â
âConsumer spending is STRONG, Net Exports are WAY UP, Imports and Trade Deficits are WAY DOWN, and there is NO INFLATION!â he also wrote. Well, thatâs not true, Madysyn thinks, but whatever.
Madysyn tells her mother she loves her and sits on the comfy couch she got from Wayfair with a cup of tea, both of which were made in China. She closes her eyes and softly repeats her calming mantra: âYear-over-year GDP growth has been surprisingly robust,â she intones, âand thereâs no indication that AI spending, which was responsible for 50% of that growth in Q3, is going to slow down, or that we're in the middle of a bubble that could be popped by securitization of data center debt or anything like that.â
Deep breaths, and Merry Christmas.
Happy holidays! Thanks for reading and sharing my work this year and for the support both moral and financial. (As always, here are some ways you can support my work.)
In 2026 news, I am discounting my January and February opinion writing workshops until December 31st, so get 'em while they're hot. I'll probably add another creative practice workshop in the next day or two for any of you who are looking to develop your writing practice in 2026.
In the meantime, I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday and doing lots of delicious nothing.
Thanks again for reading,
Elizabeth