Oh, the perils of the silly season. If your office is typical, you’re in a mad dash trying to finish everything that needs to be done before Christmas. At the same time, everybody’s running holiday parties and outings that have to be attended. Then, surprise! You find out that the office runs a Secret Santa exchange – one more thing to add to the list in the Christmas rush.

Maybe it’s time we stepped back and asked whether Christmas is really worth the hassle.

The Government Economics Network and Victoria University Business School on Thursday hosted a debate on whether “the Christmas extravaganza is a waste of time and money.”

I was, fortunately, asked to lead the argument for the affirmative, backed up by Patrick Nolan from the Productivity Commission, with Treasury’s Anne-Marie Brook and the Ministry of Health’s Bronwyn Croxson in opposition. Here’s a flavour of the argument against Christmas.

Economists generally agree that Christmas gift-giving is particularly wasteful: it’s hard to give a gift that the recipient would like more than the cash the gift cost, but giving cash misses the point. Economist Joel Waldfogel’s survey found that, on average, recipients valued gifts at only 67% to 90% of the purchase price, so between 10% and 33% of the expenditure on gifts was a total waste. Aggregated across America in 1992, these losses amounted to between $4 billion and $13 billion. And that’s leaving aside all of the time, effort, and anxiety that goes into gift giving, which could easily double that figure.

While it’s true that a thoughtful gift that skilfully demonstrates just how well you understand your partner’s unspoken wishes can be really valuable, the only thing that Christmas then adds is a stress point. If you think of the right gift in July, it then stands a strong chance of being lost by the time Christmas rolls around. Even if the gift isn’t lost, all the joy your partner could have had from the gift in August through December is lost. Worse, if the gift isn’t right, well, there’s a reason divorce rates spike upwards after Christmas.

Further, the bunching of holidays into a single time of the year kills relaxation. Imagine a world where everyone could take their four weeks’ leave whenever they and their employers wanted instead of trying to book into the same holiday lodges and campgrounds at the same time. If the weather’s bad between Christmas and New Year’s, and you’d rather have the time off in February when the weather’s better, well, tough luck. You have to have it when the weather’s bad and the roads are plugged.

Perhaps we could all write to Santa and ask for more efficient holidays.