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(RNS)—Between shelves of plastic menorahs and the overpowering aroma of hundreds of Christmas candles sits the last available Diwali item in a Manhattan HomeGoods: a sequined golden “Happy Diwali” sign flanked by glittery dancing peacocks with candle holders ballooning from their tails.
Customers have shopped for so many Diwali items that several stores are out of stock, sales reps in New York City said. At Target, the Rangoli kits have sold out. On a TJ Maxx Diwali shelf are the last few golden elephants, amber candle holders, and a mirror with its gold varnish flaking off.
This is the emerging face of Diwali in the United States. As big box retailers and luxury brands integrate the Hindu festival of Diwali into their product and marketing, many in the diaspora are celebrating the much-desired representation while also mourning what is lost when a deeply spiritual festival is “Christmasized” by massive corporations.
“On one hand, I genuinely love seeing Diwali become more visible in the mainstream American stores because recognition matters,” said Anuja Mehra, the owner of Tinted Heritage, a small business selling Indian-style home decor for year-round display. “But the big brand stores that I’m seeing are only looking at Diwali in terms of another Halloween.”
Diwali is a holiday celebrating the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. The common name is the Hindi colloquialization of the word Deepavali, a conjunction of deepa, meaning lights, and avali, meaning row.
The festival lasts for five days, with each day’s rituals invoking various deities, prayers, and values. On the first day, for example, worshippers pay homage to Dhanvantari, the god of medicine, and Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, by cleaning their homes and lighting the first diyas, or oil lamps. The fifth day celebrates the sibling bond, with sisters offering prayers for their brothers’ health and brothers offering their sisters gifts, along with several other traditional rituals. This year, the festival takes place from November 6 to 10.
However, it’s usually only the third day’s celebrations – which include family prayers to Lakshmi and Ganesh, a big feast including special Indian sweets, and sparklers and fireworks – that get amplified by American businesses.
“The spirituality is completely lost,” said Sangeetha Kowsik, the Hindu chaplain at New York University. She argues that the context of the mythical story of Lord Rama’s return to Ayodhya after 14 years in exile has been erased in the surge of commercialization.
While Kowsik believes Diwali is becoming like an “Indian Christmas” in the US, she points out that most people are aware of the spiritual significance of the Christian holiday. Diwali, on the other hand, is seen simply as a glitzy celebration.
“It’s not just a party in the sky where people get drunk and crunk and wear pretty saris and ghagras and dance around,” she said, urging retailers to post explanations of the festival’s spiritual significance next to their Diwali items.
She adds that the American version of Diwali is a North Indian Hindu portrayal, erasing the multiplicity of ways Diwali is celebrated across South Asia and in different forms by Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs.
With each passing year, more brands are integrating Diwali into their marketing calendars. This year, for the first time, the cupcake chain Baked by Melissa had a $39 Diwali box of 25 bite-sized cupcakes, including cardamom tie-dye, pistachio, and mango flavors. A sales rep said customer demand has been high.
For the third year, Cartier held a glitzy invite-only Diwali party at its Fifth Avenue mansion and released a Diwali curation featuring jewelry costing thousands of dollars per piece. Swarovski, too, released a Diwali collection.
In 2024, Barbie released a Diwali doll wearing a dark blue flower-patterned lehenga choli created by Indian luxury fashion designer Anita Dongre. “The design represents the empowered modern woman, who wears India on her sleeve with pride,” Dongre wrote on her website.
The doll, which then retailed for $40 but now costs $75 in some stores, sold out within 24 hours after launch. It received widespread fanfare, with South Asian buyers expressing their excitement about a Barbie that looked like them after childhoods of white, blond dolls and decades of a battle for mainstream representation.
Costco, Walmart, Target, HomeGoods, and TJ Maxx, too, all had Diwali sections, deals, or decor in their stores. Many sold out as the holiday approached. At Target, a paisley-patterned set of ceramic cups marketed for Diwali retailed for $15. At HomeGoods, a candle lantern sold for $16.99. Other items were marked down to as low as $5.
Some shoppers were thrilled with the assortment, rushing to the stores to stock up on low-cost holiday decorations that some had never been able to access before. Social media channels showcase thousands of videos filmed at the Diwali sections of big box stores, featuring recommendations on the best products or deals.
But others expressed skepticism given a history of Western brands selling Indian fashion at inflated prices and without acknowledgement of its cultural origins, like businesses rebranding the dupatta as a Scandinavian scarf or Prada selling Kolhapuri chappals – a replica of the centuries-old sandals crafted by artisans in Maharashtra – for almost a thousand dollars, initially without acknowledging its Indian origins.
Still, people acknowledge that having Diwali items on shelves in front of a wide swath of American consumers engenders curiosity about the religious significance of the festival.
Among the sales reps and customers RNS interviewed while visiting several big-box stores in Manhattan, few were familiar with Diwali, but many wanted to learn more, with some asking about its religious significance and which deities were being celebrated.
“It’s especially very meaningful for young children growing up now to see their culture and their celebrations and their holidays represented in places where everyone shops and not just an Indian store,” said Mehra. “Big retailers can make Diwali more visible and take it to the mainstream. I hope that visibility will create curiosity.”
Over the past decades, Indian Americans also have gained significant purchasing power. According to the Pew Research Center, the median annual income of Indian-headed households was over $150,000 in 2023, almost double the US median.
In 2025, 50% import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on goods from India made buying products from India significantly more expensive, prompting some consumers to turn to American-made goods.
Deonnie Moodie, an associate religion professor specializing in South Asia at the University of Oklahoma, labeled the separation between spirituality and materialism a false binary, created largely due to Protestant influence.
“Any kind of ritual necessitates materiality, whether it’s the flowers you’re bringing into a temple or the altar that you put in a church,” she said. “Prosperity has been something that has never been problematic in Hindu traditions. It’s not like Lakshmi is new, and she has gold coins coming out of her hands. ”
But the type of materialism has shifted, Moodie said, from buying new clothes or oil for diyas from a local market to buying from massive conglomerates and global supply chains. In some ways, she said, commercialization is the inevitable result of being accepted and integrated into modern American capitalist society.
“Instead of consumption being something where you can see the community and the effects of distribution, it becomes this global process in which profits are siphoned off by the top,” she explained.
Small businesses like Mehra’s Tinted Heritage appear as an alternative, selling items designed with a deep connection to spiritual traditions while also supporting South Asian owners rather than giant corporations. Up to 40% of Tinted Heritage sales are from the Diwali season, Mehra said.
While some consumers have deemed the higher prices of small-batch products unaffordable, Mehra, who crafts and hand-paints each of her items in her basement studio, points out that small businesses don’t have the mass-manufacturing capacity that big-box stores do.
“I offer small-batch thoughtful design, personalization, and a real connection to the tradition,” she said. “It’s not just ‘slap a diya onto something and mass produce it in China.’”
“Again,” Mehra added, “I think there’s room for both.