The Christmas celebration of secondary consumers: Observations from food banks in Finland

Abstract

This article explores what Christmas entails to people with limited consumer options and how they cope in their difficult life situations. Previous research suggests that in the contemporary consumer society in which people construct and maintain their identities by participating in consumer culture, those who lack the means to consume face social exclusion. Secondary consumption is a way for poor consumers to come closer to prevailing consumption standards. Drawing from an ethnographic study of Christmas celebrations in four faith-based food assistance organizations within one Finnish city, this study shows that for secondary consumers, Christmas simultaneously entails both more resources and a more intense sense of social exclusion. Christmas highlights the paradoxical dual position of secondary consumers where they are both excluded from and dependent on the prevailing practices of consumer culture. To cope with their situation, food receivers use different strategies: they may refuse to celebrate, distance themselves from their dependence on charity or reframe their situation by considering the food donations as gifts from God.