Spending time with family is the nation’s favourite Christmas Day tradition, followed by eating Christmas dinner and decorating the Christmas tree, along with helping the homeless and enjoying time off work, according to a study commissioned by Parcelforce Worldwide.
Over six in ten people voted Christmas as their favourite seasonal holiday. Those living in the North East are the most festive in the UK with seven in ten residents voting Christmas their favourite seasonal holiday. Northern Ireland, Yorkshire & Humber, Scotland and the South West complete the top five festive regions, respectively.
The most unusual gifts people have sent for Christmas include: a driftwood Labrador, a painted concrete gnome, a personalised wooden spoon, a Victorian slipper-shaped bed pan, an experience day to walk with llamas, an ancestry DNA testing kit, an acre of the moon, a sprig of mistletoe, bagpipes and a personalised photo cushion.
Almost one in four of those surveyed have some members of family living abroad. 40% keep in touch with their family via Skype and 30% via post. With that in mind, half of people send Christmas presents abroad with Europe being the most popular destination, followed by North America and Australia. Just under four in ten will send their parcels abroad a month in advance, with over ten per cent doing so earlier than this. 36 per cent send their parcels abroad two to three weeks before Christmas.
Some of the furthest destinations people have sent Christmas presents to include: Malawi, Bisbee in Arizona, Chiayaphum in Thailand, Alaska, Winnipeg in Canada, Timor, Namibia, Wollongong and the outback in Australia.
The survey also revealed that people do the majority of their Christmas shopping a month in advance of the big day. Almost one in four people do their shopping two to three weeks before Christmas. Only 1% leave it to the last minute and do their shopping on Christmas Eve.
Whilst rolling the dice on Christmas Eve might sound risky and lead to literally grabbing anything you can, there is a little bit of sense in the strategy. Boxing Day sales and New Year sales tend to start early and if you’re shopping on Christmas Eve you’ll find a ton of goods significantly marked down as retailers try to shift them at the last minute.
And for online retailers it’s worth remembering that Christmas Day sales have been growing year on year. Once the presents are open and Christmas Dinner is over, as people settle down with family to watch the inevitable Christmas special repeats on the TV, boredom soon sets in and with smart phones and iPads, many of which will be shiny new gifts just begging to be played with, a spot of online shopping is too tempting to ignore and fast becoming a new Christmas Day tradition to beat the Boxing Day sales rush.
While you’re probably desperately busy this week shipping out your weekend’s sales, it’s worth thinking about what promotions you’ll be running over the Christmas bank holidays… if that is you’re not totally shutting down and taking a break yourself.
4 Responses
LMFAO what the hell even is this?
I know tamebay for some reason love a pointless statistic, if there’s an infographic floating around with some unsubstantiated figures, Chris can’t wait to share it on Tamebay, if someone conducted a shoddy survey of about 12 people using crap methodology it’s going to be a headline on here, but what even is this?
it’s a load of mince is what!
who’s decorating the christmas tree on Christmas day? NOBODY!!! most of you did it in November.
how many people are helping the homeless? not many. a few, but nowhere near enough to qualify it as a national “favourite Christmas Day tradition”
it’s important that they break down the UK into regions, because we gain valuable insight and realise that people are not simply the same everywhere…
except for Scotland and Northern Ireland and Wales.
Only the English can be distinguished from one another apparently.
the other nations are just one homogenised stereotype of a person.
“Some of the furthest destinations people have sent Christmas presents to include:”
Literally nobody cares. find a globe, put a pin opposite the UK, somebody has posted a parcel there at some point, that’s the furthest a parcel ever has and ever will go without leaving earth’s atmosphere. who is the list of place names supposed to impress? especially given two of them are in the US and one in Canada. literally the first places you bump into if you head west from here. and another two in oz. ooooh exotic and distant!
I’m so starstruck by these far-flung locations i’ve forgotten the rest of the article is just fictional mince to fill a space.
“The most unusual gifts people have sent for Christmas include:”
Literally nothing on this list either.
a gnome (perfectly normal. why it even on this list?)
a personalised spoon (mildly weird at most, personalised anything is fine)
an experience day (what the hell is wrong with that? whatever the experience)
an acre of moon (quite literally a standard issue gift these days.)
an ancestry DNA testing kit (another standard, i’ve received one as a gift before)
sprig of mistletoe (was this actually a gift, or did you just get confused?)
bagpipes (bagpipe players are rare, but gifting one with pipes isn’t weird at all)
personalised photo cushion (again, personalised anything is fine, cushions are a standard gift).
I have literally, on my lonesome, given and received gifts waaaaay weirder than all of that combined. and never once deigned to presume i was up there with the “weirdest in the UK” at any point. not even close.
to summarise my thoughts on whatever this is, a full page feature of Ipsum Lorum with a “file not found” image would probably have been more enlightening and useful. and more accurate. and less confusing.