At Thanksgiving, you should carve out time to consider holiday spending

Last week, many of us gathered around the Thanksgiving table with family and friends, where we indulged in an abundance of delicious traditional foods and gave thanks for abundant blessings and freedoms.

Thanksgiving and the upcoming winter holidays are a wonderful and highly anticipated time to connect with loved ones and indulge in a certain amount of excess — including, for many of us, excessive gift-giving. Holidays can be both the best of times (in terms of social gatherings) and the worst of times (in terms of overconsumption).

This year, Americans will spend close to $680 billion on holiday gifts for family and friends. Adults expect to spend an average of $1,189 each — even though research shows that 70 percent of those same people would welcome less emphasis on gift-giving and spending.

Holiday spending can seem especially excessive in the context of food insecurity:

■ In 2016, 41 million Americans (including 13 million children) lived in food-insecure households. This means that 1 in 8 of us (and 1 in 6 of our children) lack consistent access to adequate food. Twenty-six percent of us earn too much to qualify for most federal nutrition assistance programs, but not enough to buy healthy foods.

■ Forty percent of the food in the United States goes uneaten. Americans throw away more than 70 billion pounds of food a year. This number does not include the huge amount of produce discarded by millions of backyard gardeners.

Twenty-one percent of fresh water is used to grow food that is never eaten.

Holiday spending should also be considered in the context of some startling economic facts:

■ Fifty-seven percent of Americans do not have the financial resources to cover a $500 unexpected expense.

■ Forty-five million people in the United States live below the federal poverty line ($11,892 for individuals and $23,836 for a family of four). An additional 97 million people live in households earning less than $47,700 for a family of four. When these numbers are combined, 48 percent of the nation’s population is classified as poor or low-income.

With these statistics in mind, consider the following two approaches as we gather around the Thanksgiving table to kick off the winter holiday season.

Carve out some time to spark a conversation around these questions:

■ What is our responsibility to help others in need among us?

■ Can we donate more money or volunteer more time in the coming year?

■ Which causes are most meaningful to us as a multigenerational family?

■ How can we serve as models of giving — for our children and grandchildren, or for our parents and grandparents?