Once you get past the big family dinner and the tree and the music and the general good faith and feeling that Christmas brings, it’s also a holiday about presents and material things. Which means
your economic well-being can be directly tied to your mood.

To get a sense of how that played itself out this year, we asked two families from two different economic backgrounds to tell us.

First to Iowa City, Iowa, then to Galesville, Wisc.

Two holiday experiences, both of which came to us from our Public Insight Network. Listen to their stories in the audio above.