Drive through any American neighborhood in December and the scene is familiar: inflatable snowmen swaying in front yards, LED lights outlining rooftops, artificial trees glowing through living room windows. Inside, wrapped gifts stack beneath them—toys, electronics, decorations.

What remains largely invisible is where nearly all of it comes from.

The inflatable Santa stands 12 feet tall on the front lawn, his jolly face beaming from a factory in Guangdong province. The string lights were assembled in Shenzhen. The artificial tree shipped from Yiwu, a city of 1.2 million in China’s Zhejiang province that Americans have never heard of but that manufactures nearly 70 percent of the world’s Christmas decorations.¹ This is the American Christmas in 2025—a holiday celebrating family and tradition while depending almost entirely on goods made 7,000 miles away in what many consider our greatest strategic rival.

The Numbers Behind the Season

According to U.S. International Trade Commission data, 86.8 percent of all Christmas decoration imports came from China in 2024, representing $3.15 billion in imports during the period from October 2023 to September 2024.² The dominance extends beyond tinsel and ornaments. The Toy Association estimates that roughly 80 percent of toys sold in the United States are manufactured in China, with U.S. trade data showing 78.3 percent of toy imports came from China in 2024.³ Nearly 70 percent of smartphones and laptops sold in the United States were manufactured in China.⁴

The National Retail Federation forecasted that Americans spent nearly $1 trillion on holiday retail in 2024, with individual consumers averaging $902 on gifts, food and decorations.⁵ An enormous percentage represents goods that traveled across the Pacific in shipping containers, manufactured by workers Americans will never meet, in cities most couldn’t locate on a map.

In Yiwu, more than 600 factories and workshops operate year-round producing Christmas. The city’s International Trade Market sprawls across 2 square miles—equivalent to 26 Macy’s Herald Square stores—with entire subdivisions dedicated to holiday goods. Workers there, mostly rural migrants earning about $30 per day, labor 10 to 13 hours daily during peak season, which runs from June through August to meet December shipping deadlines.⁶

One factory manager reported his company produces more than 1 million artificial Christmas trees annually. Another workshop turns out 5,000 star ornaments daily. These are not holiday elves—they are the industrial backbone of American celebration.

How We Got Here

The story is straightforward. For decades, American consumers demanded ever-lower prices, and American retailers delivered by moving production overseas. When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the floodgates opened. Labor costs in China were a fraction of domestic costs. Environmental regulations were looser. Quality control standards were negotiable.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China reached $295.5 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative—the lowest since 2009, but still the largest bilateral trade deficit the United States maintains with any country.⁷ Research from the Economic Policy Institute estimates that growing trade deficits with China eliminated 3.7 million U.S. jobs between 2001 and 2018, including 2.8 million manufacturing positions.⁸

These were not abstract statistics. They were factory closures in North Carolina textile mills, shuttered furniture plants in Michigan, computer component facilities in California. The industries that once defined the American middle class—steel, automotive, electronics, textiles—either vanished or transformed into shadows of their former selves.

The town that once had a thriving toy factory now has a distribution center where workers pack boxes of toys made elsewhere. Manufacturing jobs that paid $25 per hour with benefits became service jobs paying $15 without.

When Consumption Becomes Emotional Currency

Over time, something else happened. Consumption became emotional shorthand. Many American families now measure love, effort and care through volume: more presents, bigger displays, brighter lights. Objects step in where time, presence or attention might otherwise be required.

This is not an accusation of bad faith but a cultural adaptation. Long work hours, geographic separation and economic stress have made material expression easier than sustained presence. Buying something becomes a way of showing up.

We celebrate a holiday rooted in religious tradition and family connection by purchasing disposable goods made by workers whose rights we don’t protect, in facilities we don’t inspect, under environmental standards we wouldn’t accept at home. When given a choice between a $50 decoration made in Ohio and a $15 decoration made in China, Americans overwhelmingly choose the cheaper option.

The Costs We Don’t Count

The environmental toll is substantial. Seasonal items account for millions of tons of additional waste each year, much of it plastic or electronic, much of it non-recyclable. Shipping alone—containers crossing the Pacific to meet December deadlines—adds a carbon footprint rarely associated with holiday cheer.⁹

Most modern Christmas goods are not built to last. Decorations fail after a season or two. Toys break or lose novelty. Electronics age out through software updates rather than physical wear. Repair is rare. Replacement is easier. Disposability is not a flaw in the system—it is the system.

There is also strategic vulnerability. We depend on a geopolitical rival for basic consumer goods. And there is the hollowing out of communities that once built things, replaced by a service economy that shuffles products made elsewhere.

Distance and the People We Don’t See

Globalized production creates moral distance. Few consumers think about the working conditions behind a string of lights or a plastic toy. Fewer still could name the city or factory where it was made. Distance makes ignorance easy.

This is not unique to the holiday, but the concentration of purchasing makes it harder to ignore. In a single month, Americans consume a year’s worth of sentimentality, produced elsewhere, under conditions they do not witness.

For children, it teaches what value looks like. In abundance, expectation can replace appreciation. Novelty replaces care. Broken items are discarded rather than fixed.

The Political Trap

Both political parties now acknowledge something went wrong with China trade. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs during his first administration and expanded them in his second term. President Joe Biden maintained many of those tariffs and added new restrictions on technology exports.

Yet when it comes to Christmas goods specifically, political will evaporates. Industry groups representing retailers, toy manufacturers and importers consistently lobby for exemptions from tariffs on holiday goods. The reason is simple: Americans will not tolerate expensive Christmas.

A 25 percent tariff on Chinese Christmas goods could mean a $20 toy costs $25, a $50 artificial tree costs $62.50. Multiply that across the $1 trillion holiday shopping season, and the political calculus becomes clear: No administration wants to be remembered as the Grinch who made Christmas unaffordable.

This is the trap we have built. We depend on Chinese manufacturing for the material expression of our most important cultural celebrations. We lack the domestic capacity to replace those imports quickly. And we refuse to accept the higher prices that would make domestic production viable.

What It Reveals

There is something revealing in this arrangement. Christmas in America is framed as a celebration of family, of tradition, of timeless values. Politicians speak reverently of “American values” and the importance of domestic manufacturing. Cars sport “Buy American” bumper stickers.

Yet when December arrives, those same Americans fill their carts with Chinese goods because they are cheap, available and indistinguishable from anything made here—if anything were still made here. We celebrate national identity with imported goods. The cognitive dissonance has become routine enough to escape notice.

This is not a screed against Chinese workers or products. The gap lies between what we claim to value and what our purchasing behavior actually reveals.

Alternatives Exist

Some families have consciously chosen different paths: homemade gifts, experiences instead of objects, “buy nothing” Christmases focused on time together rather than acquisition. Some communities have revitalized local craft traditions, creating holiday markets that showcase regional artisans. These remain the exception.

The vast majority of Americans will continue decorating early, shopping frantically and presenting piles of gifts that signal affection through sheer volume. Nearly all of it will have traveled from China.

A Reckoning Deferred

This arrangement is not sustainable—not economically, not environmentally, not strategically. At some point, whether through conscious choice or external shock, it will change. Perhaps rising Chinese labor costs will shift production elsewhere. Perhaps environmental concerns will force a reckoning with the carbon footprint of global gift-giving. Perhaps geopolitical tensions will finally override our preference for cheap goods.

Or perhaps we will continue as we are, celebrating Christmas with ever more elaborate displays of Chinese manufacturing prowess, expressing love through objects that briefly glitter before being discarded.

The inflatable Santa on the lawn waves cheerfully, powered by electricity, filled with air and utterly made in China. As you hang your next ornament or plug in your lights this season, consider the journey those objects took to reach your tree. Consider the workers who made them, the ships that carried them, the system that delivered them to your door at a price you were willing to pay.

Consider what we have traded away for the privilege of abundant, affordable Christmas. And consider whether the bargain was worth it.

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Notes

1. National Christmas Tree Association, manufacturing and sourcing statistics, 2024; industry trade data on Yiwu production capacity.
2. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Holiday and Seasonal Decorations: Import Data and Market Share,” October 2023-September 2024; U.S. Census Bureau, import statistics for Christmas decorations, 2024.
3. The Toy Association, manufacturing origin data, 2024; U.S. trade data, toy import statistics by country of origin, 2024.
4. Consumer Technology Association, smartphone and laptop manufacturing origin data, 2024.
5. National Retail Federation, “Holiday Spending Forecast,” 2024.
6. Field reporting and industry documentation from Yiwu International Trade Market; labor condition reports from Chinese manufacturing zones, 2023-2024.
7. Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “U.S.-China Trade Facts,” 2024.
8. Economic Policy Institute, “The China Toll: Growing Trade Deficit Costs Manufacturing Jobs,” updated analysis through 2018.
9. Environmental Protection Agency, “Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: Facts and Figures”; Carbon Trust, “International Freight and Shipping Emissions Overview.”