From TVHE.

And don’t forget – if it wasn’t that we arbitrarily valued the idea of people spending time “thinking” about our gifts (and that the gift givers sometimes value looking like they are thinking) it would just be optimal for us to give each other money

Also note that the cost of Christmas dinner has fallen 3.5% this year (or closer to 5% in real terms).  Is this the result of deficient demand, improving productivity, or some other shock.

Christmas always raises a lot of important economic questions