How Will Consumers Embrace Extravagance for the 2026 Festive Season?

After years of frugal spending habits and the quiet guilt of underconsumption, the festive season has become a cultural pressure valve. For 2026, Christmas is the moment consumers give themselves permission to go all in; the guilt lifts, the decorations stack, and excess isn’t just permitted, it’s intentional. 

While consumers enjoy the Summer, brands, retailers, and designers are already looking ahead to Christmas, a holiday that has become a more commercially significant moment precisely because consumer confidence has been falling everywhere else.  

We’re already seeing evidence of our Festive 2026 trend, Season of Cheer, playing out across retailers’ marketing and product ranges for Christmas 2026. Read on to discover how this trend will translate for narrative, decor and gifting this festive season.

In Defence of Excess 

A widespread mood of conscious restraint has crystallised into trends like “underconsumption core.” But the festive season has always operated by different rules and for 2026, that contrast becomes sharper still. Moments of celebration are more important than ever for householders offsetting day-to-day restraint with pockets of joy and indulgence.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hannukah and Kwanzaa all become deliberate acts of permission. Dopamine menus offer schedules packed with joyful, mood-boosting rituals. Families pack their holidays with meaningful experiences, embracing new high/low traditions that combine comfort with socialising and exuberance; partying in pyjamas, infusing bold new flavours into festive meals, and trying new party and tabletop games. Nothing is understated. 

Festive Forecast 2026: Season of Cheer

Season of Cheer, one of three directions we forecast for the Festive 2026 period, shows exactly what this indulgence looks like when it reaches décor, tabletop and gifting.  

At home, this translates into decorations that commit fully to spectacle: jewel-toned ornaments stacked in abundance, beaded bows in glossy lacquer, Murano glass-effect baubles catching the light from every angle. The mood is theatrical, glitzy and nostalgic. Homes are transformed into wonderlands that draw from 80s dining and cocktail culture, with a joyful refusal to tone things down.  

Christmas Decor

Intricately crafted kitsch icons, from playing cards to cherries and cocktail glasses bring wit alongside the glamour. The table is not set, it’s staged. Vibrant striped linens sit alongside clashing prints and boldly shaped cut glassware competes for attention. 

Christmas Gifting

Toys and games are given a style-driven upgrade, turning them into a lifestyle moment rather than an activity. The high/low Pyjama Party theme epitomises the art of luxe lounging, with cocktail sets sitting alongside slippers and oven gloves in the same space.  

How will this evolve for the 2027 Festive season? 

For Christmas 2027, celebrations will keep this spirit of exuberance and excess but find new expression through silliness and humour. Laughter becomes the truest human connection; cross-generational bonding the goal. Our 2027 Festive trend Holiday Hijinks picks up on this theme and the associated décor and design shifts as the instinct to indulge gets more playful.   TrendBible’s 2027 Festive Forecast will guide you through the holiday season. Helping you create future-ready product ranges and inspiring storytelling. All our Festive Forecasts are available for Premium Seasonal and Celebration subscribers on My TrendBible.