On the Soapbox

Alice: At least it shows some thought.
Dilbert: It shows defective thought. [source]

Treating Christmas (or Solstice) any gift-giving as a potential source of deadweight loss (DWL) is nothing new for economists (in fact, it was one of the topics discussed in the very first formal economics course that I took). For the uninitiated, here is a good column that appeared in the Financial Times in 2003 that discusses the DWL of Christmas. Note, however, that these calculations of DWL do not take into account sentimental value, so taking an economic view of gift-giving does not necessarily destroy the "magic" of it, but one could call into question why it is necessary in the first place to use consumerist instruments of gifts and cards to send sentimental signals of friendship or love; are there no other, more efficient means? Also note that it is possible for the gift-giver to correctly estimate the utility curve of the recipient (or at least do an equal or better job of it than the recipient, since people do not always know what they themselves want), thus allowing for individual cases without a DWL; however, when aggregated over all of the gift-giving in society, this is not the case.