Spain's Christmas: No Greetings, Just Spending

"Not even the typical forwarded message": A Christmas without gesture

Has the Christmas greeting died? The mass-forwarded message, which saturated networks a decade ago to the point of requiring early scheduling, has plummeted. In 2025, classic bulk greetings were rare, facade lighting was reduced, and home nativity scenes were scarce, according to the conversation's opening diagnosis. The striking part isn't just missing lights; it's the absence of the gesture itself. "Not even the typical forwarded message to everyone", summarizes this view.

The paradox is that sending greetings has never been easier. Copying, pasting, and broadcasting via instant messaging takes seconds. Yet volume drops. Years ago, SMS had to be sent early because networks would saturate; today, with the cheapest tool in history, few send greetings, participants say. Technical friction vanished, and apparently, so did the intent.

Consumption doesn't match the gloom

If festive spirit fades, the cash register doesn't notice, according to thread testimonials. Hypermarkets report three or four days of frantic shopping, full carts, and unprecedented alcohol sales. Turrón tables, including high-end bars at ten euros, sell out. Some argue people have money and wonder where it comes from; an alternative scenario suggests purchases are financed by discount cards and deferred payments.

This contradiction is the year's finding: fewer greetings, more spending. Ambient pessimism doesn't stop consumption; it decouples it. Celebration happens with a full cart but an empty gesture.

Why did people stop sending Christmas greetings?

Because the social calendar lost its support structure, one analysis argues. Extended families no longer exist in the format that sustained call rounds: separated couples who don't meet, occasional ties, grandparents without grandchildren, children without cousins. What was once an emotional obligation with a recipient list has become a residue. At best, a photo of a cat with an ornament arrives.

Added to this is narrative fatigue. One stream points to a constant bombardment over a decade insisting everything is horrible and nothing is worthwhile, drying up collective liturgy. Another cites earthly causes: job uncertainty, with AI as a diffuse threat to employment in three to five years, creates a hum that discourages toasting.

Depopulation of the table and the nativity scene

The drop in greetings is the tip of an iceberg of larger change. Streets are quieter than previous years: no visible drunkenness, no firecrackers, no noise serving as New Year's Eve soundtrack. Everything very quiet outside, contrasting with previous chaos. The party has either been domesticated or extinguished, depending on perspective.

Demography offers the harshest diagnosis: fewer births, fewer cousins, fewer uncles, fewer tables. Christmas was family infrastructure, and that infrastructure has emptied from the bottom. Without children in the house, the nativity scene loses function, and greetings lose their natural recipient.

Greetings as thermometer of a tired society

The decline in Christmas greetings acts as a leading indicator. When ritual gestures vanish before consumption does, what breaks isn't the economy: it's expectation. Lack of optimism and hope for the future, the darkest analysis claims, breeds conditions for the next shock.

A kinder reading exists: mass greetings were social obligation, not affection, and their death is liberation. The problem is nothing fills the void. No ritual, no message, no table. Only a full hypermarket and a silent phone.

Ultimately, the most honest conclusion is from those admitting they didn't feel like sending greetings this year. Thus, between full carts and zero greetings, we broke the record no one wanted to break.