{"id":341617,"date":"2025-12-13T01:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341617\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T01:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:36:10","slug":"as-canadian-families-spend-at-the-holidays-seniors-offer-perspective-on-what-matters-most","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341617\/","title":{"rendered":"As Canadian families spend at the holidays, seniors offer perspective on what matters most"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With only a dozen sleeps until Christmas Day, Freda Newton is working on the kind of gift that only comes from the heart.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765485674_689_70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s got jeans, a button\u2026 her name is Martha,\u201d she says, holding up a doll she\u2019s been knitting for the past few months.<\/p>\n<p>Newton has seen nearly 90 holiday seasons in her life, but the last two were extra special, spending it with her first great-grandchild.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019d jump and scream and leap into my arms,\u201d she says, recalling last Christmas. \u201cWe did it until I was so tired I couldn\u2019t do it any more, I had to go sit down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a quiet, cozy scene at Newton\u2019s retirement home in southwest Calgary \u2014 a far cry from what you\u2019d experience in most shopping centres across the city this time of year.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Interac\u2019s annual survey of holiday spending predicts the peak is just a few days away, on Dec. 19.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re late and when you\u2019re busy, it\u2019s more of a chance to overspend,\u201d explained Lauren Mostowyk, Interac\u2019s head of corporate affairs and partnerships.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765393751_868_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-blockquote__content l-article__blockquoteContent\">\u201cYou feel that stress and you feel like, \u2018Oh, just one more thing and just throw it in the basket and don\u2019t look at the price.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nearly half of survey respondents say they plan to spend less than $500 this season, while 25 per cent said they plan to spend between $500 and $1,000.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-eight per cent of respondents said they\u2019ll be spending more than $1,000.<\/p>\n<p>The survey also found 52 per cent of respondents are worried about overspending this holiday season \u2014 so much so that grandparents are stepping up.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-one per cent of parents say they\u2019ll be relying on them for holiday support, and 33 per cent say the grandparents will be spending more than they are.<\/p>\n<p>Mostowyk says there\u2019s several internal pressures driving those stats.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Parents are) either saying, \u2018I want to give my kids what I didn\u2019t have,\u2019 or they\u2019re saying, \u2018I see the ideal holiday on social media and I want to see that as well,&#8217;\u201d Mostowyk said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11573407\/trade-war-canada-exports-canada\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ad091c0d2142033eea170c3d12953cf19c9b694ce33e2cedd4904ee8f8e34688.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tFor 1st time since trade war, Canada exported more than it imported\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11574421\/michael-ma-floor-crossing-liberal-government\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765589770_781_Michael-Ma.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tEx-Conservative MP Michael Ma crosses floor to join Carney Liberals\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>That first sentiment rings true for Jean Higashi.<\/p>\n<p>Now in her 90s, she grew up fast during the Great Depression and Second World War. Her family didn\u2019t have much.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy mother died when I was very young,\u201d she said. \u201cI ran the house. I remember cooking Christmas dinner from a very young age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s face it, we buy what we need these days,\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-blockquote__content l-article__blockquoteContent\">\u201cWe put it on the jolly old credit card, whether we can afford it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After spending part of the morning with three women, with more than 200 combined holiday seasons under their belt, they were asked what matters the most.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know what\u2019s really nice? To see how many people get visited by their families,\u201d says Pat Pitsel, who doesn\u2019t have children of her own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t help but feel great when the other people are feeling good, because they\u2019ve got their families in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, of course, it\u2019s always family,\u201d Higashi said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is family,\u201d remarked Newton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-blockquote__content l-article__blockquoteContent\">\u201cI\u2019d be pretty miserable without the family at Christmastime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Lifestyle<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With only a dozen sleeps until Christmas Day, Freda Newton is working on the kind of gift that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,24156,1849,46],"class_list":["post-341617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city-of-calgary","tag-consumer","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}