High prices, tight budgets have Canadians trimming how they'll celebrate this Christmas

Some Canadians are cutting back on spending this Christmas as they face yet another year of inflation. 

For many, wallets are feeling especially light as they struggle to meet the expectations of buying gifts and cooking special meals for family and friends over the holidays.

"I think people really feel that financial pressure to maintain the level of tradition, or the level of comfort, or the level of entertainment that they have been used to up to this point," said Janet Music, a research associate at Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab.

"There's a real emotional connection we have to our traditions and what we think of when we think of this time of year, what we have on the table and what that means, and that can be very pricey."

A traditional Christmas meal for a group of four to six people will cost about $104.85 on average this year, according to her lab's data. That includes turkey, potatoes, sauces, vegetables, stuffing, tourtiere, eggnog and dessert.

The cost will vary depending where you live in Canada — food prices are higher in Maritime provinces, for example, and even more in the northern territories. 

While food prices are slowly dropping after three years of inflation, items typically associated with holiday dinners remain pricey. Turkey is up five per cent from last year, while potatoes are up nearly seven per cent and carrots almost 13 per cent, according to the lab's data. 

Some shoppers at St. Vital Mall in Winnipeg told CBC last weekend they were cutting back on expenditures for the holidays, including gift buying, because of rising costs.

"Cost of living has affected a lot of things, because usually we go all out on Christmas, but with the price of groceries and inflation, we are actually cutting back a lot [of] expenditures this year," shopper Angie Stephenson told CBC Manitoba.

Black Friday Shoppers at Sherway Gardens in Toronto expressed similar frustrations last month. 

Rohit Sahu told CBC that said he's more aware now of how he spends every dollar. "Everything's so expensive that you're just cutting costs and trying to ... be low-key and save money," he said.

He said he's a window shopper because nothing has met his high bar for what qualifies as a bargain right now. "The deals are good, but still not affordable for us."

The number of Canadians using food banks across the country reached record highs this year, with more than 1.9 million visits to food banks in March 2023, surpassing the previous record set last year by 32 per cent. 

In a national survey released in October 2022, 30 per cent of Canadians said they were eating less healthy food due to rising costs. Almost 20 per cent said they skipped meals to save money.