All I Want for Xmas is 5 Million Tons of Garbage

This year, surveys show that shoppers plan to spend about $859 on presents, though that number could turn out to be much higher when the season is over and the analysts pull out their calculators to prove that our economy is healthy and wealthy but certainly not wise.

Americans will probably cough up $8 million again on holiday decorations (everything from designer tree trimmers to Santa pins with the blinking red light noses), as they did in previous years. Online sales are predicted to be in the area of $33 billion, proving that the internet is not just for nerds.

Mother nature will contribute to the festivities, though without much say in the matter. Almost 29 million of her trees were cut down and sold last year, not to mention discarded on sidewalks, so that families could gather around them to collect their loot. China will no doubt gross somewhere around $450 million from the sale of artificial trees, as it’s done in the past. An additional $2.2 billion will be racked up in the sale of toys that haven’t been recalled yet.

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