This has been a year of firsts. The Catholic Church elected its first pope born in the U.S. Donald Trump became the first American president in the modern era to return to office after losing re-election. And Americans spent more money on Black Friday, yet brought home fewer items.

Wait, what drove that shift?

Not as groundbreaking as those first two milestones, but economics, rising prices, and tariff-fueled inflation have put the U.S. in a strange place for Christmas 2025.

Despite holiday sales pushing into record territory, Americans are coming to terms with the fact that the value of a dollar in 2025 is not the same as the value of that same dollar in 2024. Here’s what the data shows: according to software company Salesforce, on Black Friday, order volume was down 1%, but high

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