“There’s no place like home for the holidays.” It’s been sung, spoken, performed, and it’s true. Nothing makes it feel like the holiday season than a Christmas tree covered in ornaments, stockings by the fireplace, and lights inside and outside a home.
We wanted to find out which decorations are America’s favorites and how they’ve changed over the past year since releasing our report in 2021. This year we also surveyed more than 1,000 Americans to ask them how inflation is impacting their holiday festivities.
The most popular decorations in most states are the classic Christmas trees and Christmas lights. A Christmas tree was the top decoration in nine states including a number of Midwest states such as Michigan, Indiana, and Florida.
Florida actually was looking for something a little different than your standard Frasier Fir. One of the most searched Christmas trees in the state was a “Christmas palm tree.”
Meanwhile, people in Missouri, Kansas, Washington, and four other states are huge fans of Christmas lights. Unsurprisingly, the top decoration in many cold and snowy states is snowmen! Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and South Dakota all love to decorate with them.
Out East, Maine, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania decorate their homes with window candles. Only two states decorate with Santa: Hawaii and Alaska. Arizona and California go for the mistletoe. Rhode Island is the only state that prefers to decorate with poinsettias.
But who decorates the most? When we compared average monthly search terms and the state’s population, the states that come in first are Alaska, Delaware, Maine, Hawaii, and Idaho. Those searching the least are New York, Washington, Minnesota, Ohio, and Oregon.
Some cities are excited about the holidays, while others are not so much. We determined which of the 30 most populous cities have the most and least Christmas cheer based on how much they’re searching for holiday decorations.
Even though they really never have a chance of getting a white Christmas, the city with the most Christmas cheer is Las Vegas! It’s followed by Denver, Baltimore, Nashville, and Dallas.
Meanwhile, New York is the city where Scrooge and the Grinch probably live. Based on Google searches, New York City has the least Christmas cheer along with Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, and San Jose.
The majority (80%) of Americans are planning to decorate for the holidays, and most put a lot of effort into it! In our survey, people said it takes them an average of four hours to decorate for Christmas!
The most popular holiday decorations in America are Christmas trees, but people were torn about which type is their favorite. About 2 in 3 (67%) prefer fake trees and 1 in 3 (33%) would like a real tree.
The other most popular decorations are garland, Christmas lights, mistletoe, and a snowman. Half of Americans decorate their homes with Christmas lights inside and outside. About 1 in 3 (34%) only decorate with lights inside, and 1 in 10 only put up lights on the outside.
Decorations aren’t just for people, but pets too! More than half (52%) of pet owners say they have decorations for their pets like a stocking or ornament.
As Americans get ready for the holidays, many may begin listening to Christmas or holiday music. A controversial topic is when people actually start blasting songs like “All I Want for Christmas is You.” Turns out, nearly 1 in 6 (14%) start playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving! More than 1 in 10 (11%) start listening on Thanksgiving day.
Only 1 in 3 waits until December first or later to turn on the catchy tunes, but surprisingly some never listen to it at all. Nearly 1 in 5 (17%) said they don’t listen to Christmas music! Bah humbug.
1 in 5 (20%) actually start decorating their home before Thanksgiving! Nearly 1 in 4 (24%) begin putting everything up on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, and the majority (56%) wait until after Thanksgiving is over.
As for when people take their decorations down, some overachievers have them packed away by New Year’s day (27%). However, most people (67%) return everything to storage by the end of January. However, families can’t always store their decorations in their homes. Nearly 1 in 6 (14%) admitted they don’t have enough space to store their holiday decorations.
Inflation definitely will play a part in this holiday season. Nearly 3 in 5 (58%) Americans said they’ll be buying fewer gifts this year, and about 1 in 5 (18%) are going to try and do homemade gifts to save money.
Nearly 1 in 3 (27%) said they’ll be scaling down holiday celebrations, and 1 in 5 (17%) will not be able to give as much to charity this year.
Many people decorate their homes with items from classic Christmas movies! The top movie-themed decorations include Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown, The Grinch, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Christmas Vacation.
More than 3 in 5 (62%) make it a tradition to watch certain Christmas movies every year. There are classics like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” and “Die Hard?” More than 2 in 5 (41%) feel that Die Hard is a Christmas movie!
We hope you’re able to transform your home into a merry place this holiday season whether it be with paper snowflakes or inflatable Santas. There really is no place like home for the holidays.
Methodology
We analyzed 7,713 Google search terms related to Christmas decorations such as “artificial Christmas trees,” “stocking holders,” “candy cane Christmas Decor” over the period of September 2020 to September 2022 to complete this study. For this report, we also analyzed the most disproportionately popular Google search terms to determine the most popular decoration by state. We compared each state’s search results to the national average in order to determine which search term has a higher search volume when compared to the national average. This method of analysis allows us to even the playing field between smaller states with lower populations or a lower search volume (such as Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, etc.) and states with a large population with higher search volume (California, Texas, Florida, etc.).
To determine the cities with the most and least Christmas cheer we looked at how much or little the top 30 most populous cities were searching for holiday decorations per capita.
In October 2022, we also surveyed 1,008 Americans to get their feedback on decorating for Christmas and the typical holiday decorations. Respondents were 49% female, 49% male, 1% nonbinary, and 1% transgender with an age range of 18 to 84 and an average age of 39 years old. 65% live in a house, 24% are in an apartment, 4% are in a townhome, 3% are in a condo, 3% are in a mobile home, and 1% marked other.
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