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Holiday Spending Increased, Defying Fears of a Decline

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While the pace of growth slowed, spending stayed strong because of robust job growth and strong wage gains.Despite lingering inflation, Americans increased their spending this holiday season, early data shows. That comes as a big relief for retailers that had spent much of the year fearing the economy would soon weaken and consumer spending would fall.Retail sales increased 3.1 percent from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to data Mastercard released on Tuesday. The credit card company’s numbers are not adjusted for inflation.Spending increased across many categories, with restaurants experiencing one of the largest jumps, 7.8 percent. Apparel increased 2.4 percent, and groceries also had gains.The holiday sales figures, driven by a healthy labor market and wage gains, suggests that the economy remains strong. The Federal Reserve’s campaign to rein in high inflation by raising interest rates over the last few years has slowed the economy, but many economists believe a so-called soft landing is within reach.“What we’re seeing during this holiday season is very consistent with how we’re thinking about the economy, which is that it’s an economy that is still very much expanding,” said Michelle Meyer, Mastercard’s chief economist.Solid job growth is allowing people to spend more. And even though consumer prices have risen a lot in the last two years, wages have grown faster on the whole.“We’re now entering the period, and we’re seeing it to some extent during the holiday season, where consumers have built up real purchasing power,” Ms. Meyer said.Still spending in categories like electronics and jewelry declined this season. And the rate of growth in spending has moderated from the last couple of years. In 2022, retail sales during the holiday season increased 5.4 percent, according to the National Retail Federation. In 2021, they rose 12.7 percent, the largest percentage increase in at least 20 years. Online sales growth has also slowed in 2023, increasing 6.3 percent compared with 10.6 percent from 2021 to 2022, according to Mastercard.While the economy is strong overall, Americans are being more mindful of how they’re spending, and that discretion shaped the shopping season.Some retailers had expressed concerns in recent months that shoppers appeared glum and fearful about the economy. Walmart and Target noted that shoppers seemed to be waiting for sales before buying, a change from recent years when they spent more freely.“The caution that they’ve taken on their spend and where they’re spending has been really noticeable in the second half of the year, where a lot of customers have been affected, especially lower-income and middle-income” people, said Jessica Ramírez, a retail research analyst at Jane Hali & Associates.In a return to some of the trends that prevailed before the pandemic, many retailers and brands offered promotions. Discounts were in the 30 to 50 percent range, Ms. Ramírez said. But the discounts were more targeted this year than last because fewer companies were saddled with gluts of inventory.Retail sales increased this holiday season compared with the same period a year earlier, though at a slower pace than last year.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesThe categories that have faced falling sales this year — like electronics, home furnishings and toys — saw some of the biggest discounts leading up to Christmas. Those goods had enjoyed booming sales during the pandemic.Alexan Weir, a 30-year-old mother in Orlando, Fla., said she was pleased to find deals on toys when she bought Christmas gifts for her daughters this month. Among the items she bought at Target were the Asha doll, based on the main character from the Disney movie “Wish”; an Elsa doll from “Frozen”; and a Minnie Mouse kitchen set. With discounts, the items together cost about half as much as their total list prices of $200.“As a parent you’re just trying to make your kids happy. You’re not trying to break the bank,” Ms. Weir said. “I spent a little bit more this year, but at least with the few sales that I received, I can say I was not heartbroken about how much I was spending.”Barbie — whose banner year was fueled by the blockbuster movie — sold particularly well in a year when there wasn’t a breakout toy. The doll and her many accouterments have been selling well at Mary Arnold Toys, a family-owned store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. And overall sales at the shop have been steady, said Ezra Ishayik, who has run the store for 40 years.“It looks like it is about even with last year — not better, not worse,” Mr. Ishayik said. “The economy looks good to me. It’s decent, it’s OK, people are buying. We are on the high end of the industry so we don’t see any downtrend at all.”But the past few months have been more challenging for Modi Toys.Modi, an online retailer, sells plush toys and books based on Hindu culture and usually sees two sales bumps in the fourth quarter — one in the lead up to Diwali and another around Christmas.Normally the company brings in more than $100,000 in sales in the month before Diwali, which fell on Nov. 12, but this year sales dropped into the five-figure range. That was partly because the retailer launched a product too early and then had to offer hefty discounts to spur sales — something retailers try to avoid with new merchandise.“That’s when we knew that we really were going to have a challenging holiday season,” said Avani Modi Sarkar, a founder of the company.As she wraps up the year and looks toward 2024, Ms. Sarkar is testing new digital marketing strategies, including sending personalized email newsletters to customers and closely monitoring discounts.“We’re just trying to close the gap for us and not end the year with as big of a gap as we would have,” she said. “I know what we’re capable of, and I’m trying to not only get to that level again, but surpass it.”One clear sign that shoppers are being more careful about how much they spend comes from discount retailers. In November, Burlington, an off-price retailer, and the parent company of Marshalls and T.J. Maxx said they saw comparable store sales increase 6 percent.The online retailer ThriftBooks said its sales were also up this holiday season, by more than 20 percent in November and more than 24 percent this month compared with a year ago, according to Ken Goldstein, the company’s chief executive.“This was unprecedented,” Mr. Goldstein said. “This is beyond belief in terms of the volume that we’re doing. Because we’re a value product, I think a lot of people are putting their dollars to work.” More

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    Retailers’ Seasonal Hiring Plans Signal a Cooling Labor Market

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    After scrambling to fill out work forces in recent years, many companies are reporting more modest goals for temporary employment.As the most important selling season for retailers approaches, job applicants may feel a chill.Macy’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods plan to hire fewer seasonal workers after a surge in the past two years, when shoppers thronged to stores after pandemic lockdowns and employers struggled to keep up. Many retailers have dropped the incentives they used over the past few years to bring workers in the doors, such as signing or referral bonuses and steeper employee discounts.The career site Indeed said that searches for seasonal jobs were up 19 percent from last year, but that listed positions were down 6 percent. Companies helping businesses find temporary workers note that major retailers have been slower to release hiring plans this year. And on Indeed, fewer job postings are described as urgent needs.Seasonal hiring helps retailers handle the increased shopping during the fourth quarter, often referred to as “peak season.” Sales in November and December can account for a quarter of some retailers’ annual revenue. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, foot traffic in stores and online shopping are usually at their height.Early estimates point to an increase in retail spending this holiday season, but not at the fast pace of recent years.Some economists and consultants see the trends in hiring and pay as a sign that the red-hot labor market of the past couple of years has cooled. Retailers’ work forces, unsteady throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, are starting to stabilize. As inflation erodes shoppers’ budgets and confidence — and savings from pandemic relief programs are drawn down — the hiring plans may be part of a cautious approach that extends to inventories and sales projections.“The seasonal hiring market looks a whole lot more like 2019 than those pandemic bounce-back years,” said Nick Bunker, director of North American economic research for Indeed. “I really do think this is emblematic broadly of what we’re seeing in the U.S. labor market, where demand for workers overall is fairly strong but down from where it was in the last year and a half.”Macy’s is aiming to hire 38,000 workers, 3,000 below its 2022 plan. In 2021, Macy’s said it aimed to hire 76,000 people — in both permanent roles and seasonal jobs — during the holiday season. Of those positions, 48,000 were temporary.Dick’s said it would hire up to 8,600 seasonal workers, down from targets of 9,000 last year and 10,000 in 2021 — and up only slightly from 8,000 in 2019.“The seasonal hiring market looks a whole lot more like 2019 than those pandemic bounce-back years,” said Nick Bunker, an economic researcher at Indeed.Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressTarget and United Parcel Service plan to hire the same number of workers as last year, about 100,000 each. In a statement, Target said its seasonal associates would supplement the hiring it had done throughout the year to staff up its stores and supply chain facilities.“This year, we are starting the season with stability in our work force and a continued commitment to scheduling flexibility for our team, which has helped us retain team members and create a more experienced work force,” the company said in a post on its blog.Walmart, the nation’s biggest retailer, echoed that sentiment.“I’m also excited that we’re staffed and ready to serve customers this holiday season,” Maren Dollwet Waggoner, senior vice president of people at Walmart U.S., said in a post on LinkedIn. “We’ve been hiring throughout the year to be sure we’re ready to serve customers however they want to shop.”A Walmart spokeswoman added that if a store had additional staffing needs during the holiday season, it would offer extra hours to current employees before looking externally. Walmart did not say how many seasonal workers it planned to hire this year, as it did in years past. (In 2022, it said it was looking to fill 40,000 seasonal positions, including truck drivers and call center workers.)Amazon is a notable exception, saying it will hire more seasonal workers this year — 250,000, up from 150,000 last year. It also said that a $1.3 billion investment would bring the average hourly wage of those jobs to more than $20.50 and that it would still offer signing bonuses in some locations.Matching staffing to demand helps ensure that retailers eke out as many sales as they can.Seasonal workers are “the folks that are on the front lines of their business,” said John Long, North America retail sector leader at the consulting firm Korn Ferry, adding that aside from a store’s inventory, they “are going to be the make-or-break piece of the equation of whether the retailer makes their numbers or they don’t.”Amazon said it planned to hire 250,000 seasonal workers, up from 150,000 last year.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAfter paring their work forces during the worst of the pandemic, employers in the retail and hospitality industries scrambled to fill open positions as workers sought more flexibility, switched companies frequently or stood on the sidelines. To get back to prepandemic staffing, retailers have used evergreen requisitions — continually displayed postings advertising essential roles that often need to be filled — and have started hiring seasonal workers as early as August.They have also given more hours to part-time workers and relaxed qualifications. To reduce turnover, many companies have bumped up their base wages for hourly positions.These factors have complicated the explanation for reduced seasonal hiring this year, said Melissa Hassett, a vice president at Manpower Group who works with large retailers, logistics and distributors across the country.“If you’re always hiring, you’re just not going to see an increase in postings happen very often,” she said. “So sometimes when you look at the increase in postings for retail it’s not as accurate as you think it is.”But there is also a feeling that the leverage of retail job applicants will fade.“In the past it felt like the workers had a lot more upper hand in terms of being able to demand what they need,” Yong Kim, founder of the staffing platform Wonolo, said. That dynamic has changed, especially for temporary positions.“There is definitely more tightening around companies wanting to hold off on hiring unless they really need to” and waiting to see how the fourth quarter pans out, Mr. Kim said. More

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    Why Christmas Gifts Are Arriving on Time This Year

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    Fears that a disrupted supply chain could wreak havoc on the logistics industry over the holiday turned out to be wrong as many Americans ordered early and shopped in stores.The warnings started to stream in early this fall: Shop early or you may not get your gifts on time.Global supply chain problems that have led to long delays in manufacturing and shipping could ripple outward, slowing package deliveries to millions of Americans in the weeks and days before Christmas, experts warned. The prospect even became a talking point in conservative attacks on President Biden’s policies.Despite early fears, however, holiday shoppers have received their gifts mostly on time. Many consumers helped themselves by shopping early and in person. Retailers ordered merchandise ahead of time and acted to head off other bottlenecks. And delivery companies planned well, hired enough people and built enough warehouses to avoid being crushed by a deluge of packages at the last minute, as the Postal Service was last year.The vast majority of packages delivered by UPS, FedEx and the Postal Service this holiday season are gifts destined for residential addresses, according to ShipMatrix, a software company that services the logistics industry. And nearly all have arrived on time or with minimal delays, defined as a few hours late for express packages and no more than a day late for ground shipments. The UPS and the Postal Service delivered about 99 percent of their packages on time by that measure between Nov. 14 and Dec. 11, and FedEx was close behind at 97 percent, according to ShipMatrix.“The carriers have done their part. Consumers have done their part,” said Satish Jindel, president of ShipMatrix. “When they work together, you get good results.”That’s not to say the supply chain turmoil is over. About a hundred container ships are waiting off the West Coast to unload their cargo. Big-ticket items, such as new cars, are still hard to find because of a shortage of some critical parts like computer chips. And prices are up for all kinds of goods.But at least when it comes to items that are in stock, delivery companies have given consumers little to complain about. By some measures, in fact, they have done a better job this holiday season than even before the pandemic. In the two full weeks after Thanksgiving, it took about four days from the moment a package was ordered online for it to be delivered by FedEx, according to data from NielsenIQ, which tracks online transactions from millions of online shoppers in the United States. That compares with about 4.6 days for UPS and more than five days for the Postal Service.For UPS and FedEx, those figures are an improvement of about 40 percent from a similar post-Thanksgiving period in 2019, according to NielsenIQ. For the Postal Service, it was a 26 percent improvement.“There’s all these different moving parts that have collaborated to help us get through what might have been a perfect storm to cause problems,” Bill Seward, president of worldwide sales and solutions for UPS, said in an interview. “We feel really good about where we’re at right now.”The achievement is all the more notable given that Americans are on track to spend more this holiday season than the one before — up to 11.5 percent over 2020, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade group.But this year has been different in a critical way: Many people started shopping earlier.The vast majority of packages delivered by UPS, FedEx and the Postal Service this holiday season are gifts destined for residential addresses.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesConsumer surveys, including those commissioned by UPS and NPD Group, a market research firm, found that Americans accelerated their holiday shopping this year, motivated by shortages, shipping delays or earlier sales from retailers.Jennifer Grisham, who lives in Southern California with her husband and three young children, was among them. Concerned by news of supply chain disruptions, Ms. Grisham asked her children to draw up their Christmas wish lists before Halloween, weeks earlier than usual. She had finished shopping by the day after Thanksgiving, which is usually when she starts buying gifts.“I have three kids who still believe in Santa Claus,” she said. “I was not going to bookend these two really dramatic years for us with them suddenly not getting what they wanted.”Ms. Grisham said she had little trouble finding the big-ticket items she pursued: a Barbie Dreamhouse for one daughter, Lego sets for her son and a cat condo for her other daughter, who plans to use it as a home for her stuffed animals.“I’m happy that I got it done early, because I didn’t have to worry about the risk,” she said.Retailers enticed consumers to shop early. Amazon and Target, for example, began holiday deals in October. According to Mr. Seward at UPS, 26 of the company’s 30 largest retail customers started offering substantial deals before Black Friday.Many Americans also eased pressure on UPS and other delivery companies by doing more shopping in stores. After consumers switched to online shopping in droves when the pandemic took hold last year, in-store shopping bounced back strongly this year, according to retail and logistics experts. In September, in-store sales accounted for about 64 percent of retail revenue, up 12 points from its low point during the pandemic, but still somewhat below 2019 levels, according to NPD Group.“We miss people,” Katie Thomas, a top consumer analyst at Kearney, a consulting firm, said about the compulsion to visit stores rather than buy online. “There’s a pent-up demand. We’re seeing people want to dress up again.”Retailers and delivery companies also worked behind the scenes to make sure the supply chain disruptions did not wreak havoc on holiday packages. Retailers worked harder to forecast sales and moved inventory to areas where UPS, FedEx and others had more capacity to pick up packages. Companies that previously relied mostly or exclusively on a single delivery service started doing business with several companies.The delivery companies have spent the past two years building out capacity, too, in response to surging demand. UPS, which in the past did not make deliveries on Saturday in much of the country, has been expanding its weekend service for years. It now offers Saturday deliveries to about 90 percent of the U.S. population. FedEx has added nearly 15 million square feet of sorting capacity to its network since June. And, starting in the spring, the Postal Service, which processes more mail and packages than the other delivery businesses, started leasing additional space and installing faster package-sorting machines around the country.A post office distribution center in Los Angeles last month was already in the holiday swing.Mario Tama/Getty ImagesThe companies have also responded by raising rates, imposing surcharges for larger packages that could slow down their networks, limiting the number of packages they will accept at busy times and penalizing retailers that ship many more or many fewer packages than they had forecast.“We used to think that every package was the same,” Carol Tomé, UPS’s chief executive, told financial analysts in October, explaining her strategy of focusing on quality over quantity. “We don’t think that anymore. So for some shippers, we’re no longer delivering their packages, and that’s OK with us.”The Postal Service doesn’t have the luxury of easily turning away business, but even it has done a better job of managing expectations for holiday package deliveries. Despite the introduction of its first-ever holiday surcharge last year, its delivery performance suffered. This year, however, it has fared much better, thanks to 13 million square feet of new processing space, 112 new high-speed processing machines and the decision to hire peak-season workers earlier.“U.S.P.S. is maybe the most exciting story of all,” said Josh Taylor, senior director of professional services at Shipware, a consulting firm. “The fact that they’re not overwhelmed, that their network can continue to deliver on time, it’s a great development for consumers.”But the holiday crunch does not end on Christmas. Online returns will keep delivery companies busy for weeks.And the pandemic is not yet over. Fear over the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus could drive consumers back to online shopping in the months to come, which would impose new pressures on delivery companies and retailers. More

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    As Virus Cases Rise in Europe, an Economic Toll Returns

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    A series of restrictions, including a lockdown in Austria, is expected to put a brake on economic growth.Europe’s already fragile economic recovery is at risk of being undermined by a fourth wave of coronavirus infections now dousing the continent, as governments impose increasingly stringent health restrictions that could reduce foot traffic in shopping centers, discourage travel and thin crowds in restaurants, bars and ski resorts.Austria has imposed the strictest measures, mandating vaccinations and imposing a nationwide lockdown that began on Monday. But economic activity will also be dampened by other safety measures — from vaccine passports in France and Switzerland to a requirement to work from home four days a week in Belgium.“We are expecting a bumpy winter season,” said Stefan Kooths, a research director of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany. “The pandemic now seems to be affecting the economy more negatively than we originally thought.”The Christmas market in Frankfurt, Germany on Monday. Some German states have imposed partial lockdowns.Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersThe tough lockdowns that swept Europe during the early months of the pandemic last year ended up shrinking economic output by nearly 15 percent. Buoyed by a raft of government support to businesses and the unemployed, most of those countries managed to scramble back and recoup their losses after vaccines were introduced, infection rates tumbled and restrictions eased.In September, economists optimistically declared that Europe had reached a turning point. In recent weeks, the main threats to the economy seemed to stem from a post-lockdown exuberance that was causing supply-chain bottlenecks, energy-price increases and inflation worries. And widespread vaccinations were expected to defang the pandemic’s bite so that people could continue to freely gather to shop, dine out and travel.What was not expected was a series of tough government restrictions. A highly contagious strain — aided by some resistance to vaccines and flagging support for other anti-infection measures like masks — has enabled the coronavirus to make a comeback in some regions.“The lower vaccination rates are, the gloomier the economic outlook is for this winter term,” Mr. Kooths said.Roughly two-thirds of Europe’s population has been vaccinated, but rates vary widely from country to country. Only a quarter of the population in Bulgaria has received a shot, for example, compared with 81 percent in Portugal, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.A vaccination line in Lisbon. Covid-19 inoculation rates vary widely among European Union countries; Portugal is among the leaders.Patricia De Melo Moreira/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBefore they were ordered shut, stores in Austria were already suffering a 25 percent loss in revenue for November compared with the same period in 2019, the country’s retail trade association said on Monday. Although the last shopping Saturday before the lockdown — stores in Austria are closed on Sunday — was stronger than that day two years ago, the group said, it would not be enough to make up for the losses expected in the coming weeks.Hotels were not faring much better in the week before the start of the lockdown, with one of every two bookings canceled, Austria’s hotel association, Ö.H.V., said.Still, the overall outlook is not nearly as dire as it was last year. Although several analysts have shaved their forecasts for October, November and December, growth is still expected to be positive, with the yearly increase hovering around the 5 percent mark. Jobless rates have dropped and, in some areas, businesses are complaining of labor shortages.Austria’s response, to impose a three-week lockdown — which shuts all stores except those providing basic necessities, allows restaurants to serve only carryout and requires people to stay home except for essential activities — is not necessarily a bellwether of what other governments across Europe will do. Leaders in France and Britain signaled last week that they were not planning new shutdowns.“We’re not at that point,” Sajid Javid, the British health secretary, said on Sunday. While there can’t be complacency, he added that he hoped people could “look forward to Christmas together.”Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Economics, said that while it was clear that restrictions and lockdowns had a significant and immediate impact on the economy, limited and intermittent closings — like those that already exist in some countries — were less likely to put a huge dent in overall growth.Rising infection rates will also push concerns over inflation — at least in the near future — “a little bit into the background,” he said.Much more difficult to assess, though, are the consequences of widespread restrictions on the unvaccinated or vaccine mandates.For individual businesses and regions, however, even the current limits could prove devastating.Restaurants in Austria will allow only carryout service.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesThe weeks leading up to Christmas Day are among the most important shopping days in Austria and Germany, where people gather at outdoor markets to eat, drink and buy gifts. The region’s traditional holiday markets, which normally open from late November until Dec. 24, are also an important tourist draw, and generate wider revenue through hotel bookings and other cultural events.Last year, many markets were completely shut down, so sellers and buyers were looking forward to this year.In Vienna, the market on Maria Theresien Platz opened on Wednesday, its wooden stalls decorated with evergreen boughs and fairy lights. But the vendors were forced to shut down after only four days.Maria Kissova stood amid piles of tablecloths, pillow covers and lace ornaments she had brought in from neighboring Slovakia, where she employs several women to sew the crafts. This year was her first time coming to Vienna, a trip that required months of planning and paperwork. With the lockdown, she faced the prospect of only several days’ worth of shopping, if the market is allowed to reopen as planned in mid-December.“It was a shock” when the lockdown was announced, she said, adding that it was too early to predict the scale of the losses she could incur. “We just have to accept it.”For Daniel Zieman, who ran a gift stand across the square between Vienna’s Natural History and Art History Museums, the story was the same. But he worried about the staff at the restaurant serving typical Austrian fare that he runs on the edge of town, many of whom count on the tips coming in from waiting tables in the normally busy season. Lost tips won’t be included in the government subsidies that will help keep people afloat.“Many of our staff have children, and you count on a certain percent from these tips every month,” he said. “That won’t be there.”The holiday season is when many restaurants do their biggest business, with companies holding end-of-year events, he said. “That is really good business, with 30 to 40 people who eat and drink and drink again and eat again. It’s a real shame,” he said.The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also imposed new restrictions. In Germany, some states have introduced partial lockdowns, and starting Wednesday, the unvaccinated will be required to show a negative Covid test before going to work.By the end of this winter, pretty much everyone in Germany “will be vaccinated, cured or dead,” Jens Spahn, the health minister, said on Monday.A nationwide closure in Germany, the continent’s largest economy, is unlikely at the moment, but Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, warned that one there would drag down all of Europe. “If Germany locks down, Europe is going to go back into recession,” he said.In France, Europe’s second-largest economy, President Emmanuel Macron is loath to reverse economic gains when a major election is scheduled in April. Despite warnings by health experts that another wave of coronavirus is hitting France “with lightning speed,” Mr. Macron said last week that he wouldn’t close parts of the economy again or follow Austria.Nearly 70 percent of the French population has been double vaccinated, and the country imposed a health pass earlier this year requiring people to show proof of vaccination to travel on trains and planes and enter restaurants, cinemas and large shopping centers.The government will now require a booster dose for people 65 or older for the pass to remain valid, and France’s Health Defense Council will meet on Wednesday with Mr. Macron to discuss other options to slow the spread of the coronavirus.The government, a spokesman said this week, is bringing “the weight of restrictions to bear on nonvaccinated people rather than vaccinated people.”Liz Alderman More

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    For Millions of Jobless, Christmas Is a Season to Endure, Not Celebrate

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFor Millions of Jobless, Christmas Is a Season to Endure, Not CelebrateEven with new federal aid on the way, many Americans face a holiday of tough choices, trying to celebrate while dealing with pressing needs.Tresa Watson, right, with her grandson Khalil and his mother, Rachel Rucinski, at their home in Milwaukee. Ms. Watson was laid off in March.Credit…Sebastian Hidalgo for The New York TimesNelson D. Schwartz and Dec. 23, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETNicole Craig, an unemployed mother of two from Pittsburgh, will have no Christmas gifts for her two children, and the ham she bought with food stamps will be far less than their usual holiday dinner. Months behind on her rent and utility bills, she has been struggling to afford formula and diapers. But there is one thing she couldn’t give up: a small Christmas tree and the trimmings to go with it.Ms. Craig spent the last $7 in her bank account on tinsel, a symbol of light in the darkness of 2020. “It’s my baby’s first Christmas,” she said. “I wanted him to be able to see a Christmas tree.”Although Ms. Craig, 42, lost her job as a counselor for at-risk youth through no fault of her own, she can’t help blaming herself when she sees Christmas decorations and other reminders of a holiday she can barely celebrate. “I don’t even want to think about it because I feel so bad for my kids,” she said. “It makes me feel like such a failure.”For Ms. Craig, and millions of other Americans who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic, this is a holiday season more to weather than to relish. With unemployment benefits running out and an unforgiving job market offering few berths, this Christmas will be remembered by many for painful sacrifices, not the joy of exchanging gifts and partaking of festive meals with family.The arrival of vaccines and the approval of a new federal relief package offer hope, but they come too late to salvage this year’s celebration — particularly with the prospect that this winter could bring the pandemic’s darkest days.“I’m really afraid of what’s going to happen,” Ms. Craig said.The long delay in achieving a congressional accord on an aid bill has meant fewer gifts under the tree even as the pandemic has separated families and moved what holiday cheer there is this year to video-chat gatherings.And for many families, the $600-a-person stimulus payments approved by Congress are already earmarked for rent and other necessities.In the meantime, unemployed Americans like Monica Scott of Lakeland, Fla., are looking to the past for comfort.“This year the only thing I can do is talk about memories,” said Ms. Scott, who is five months pregnant and had to leave her job at an Amazon warehouse because of the risk of miscarriage from loading and unloading heavy packages. “Last year was awesome — so many toys, clothes and shoes.”Ms. Scott, 34, wants to make a Christmas dinner with her three boys — 14, 10 and 8 years old — but food will be limited because she will be relying on food stamps and lacks a kitchen. Ms. Scott is living in a motel after being evicted last spring from her apartment, but hopes to find a permanent home soon.“It’s just a room with a bathroom,” she said. “The rent is due, and I don’t know where it will come from. I could move in with my sister, but she has her kids, and it’s just not comfortable.”Jessica Hudson, with her children, Emerson and Marleigh, spent the last few weeks scouting beautifully decorated houses for a family drive on Christmas Day.Credit…Sarahbeth Maney for The New York TimesMs. Scott and others will also be turning to food banks to pull together Christmas dinner.“We usually do rib roast, Martinelli’s apple cider, a couple of desserts,” said Jessica Hudson, a full-time student and mother of two from Millbrae, Calif. “We won’t be able to do any of that this year.”Ms. Hudson and her partner, who is unemployed, are doing their best to make Christmas as cheery as they can: They bought stockings and candy from the dollar store, and they have spent the last few weeks scouting local streets for the most beautifully decorated houses, so that they can take their children on a drive to see them on Christmas Day.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    In a Hard Year, Families Find Joy in Real Christmas Trees

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