Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Explainer: Christmas 2015 by the Numbers
Explainer: Christmas 2015 by the Numbers
Dec 11, 2025 6:19 PM

As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas produces many things — joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Here are a few to contemplate this season:

$39.50– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on real Christmas trees in 2014.

$63.60– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on fake Christmas trees in 2014.

33,000,000 – Number of real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. each year.

9,500,000 – Number of fake Christmas trees sold each year.

7 – Average growing time in years for a Christmas tree.

350 million –Number of Christmas trees currently growing on Christmas tree farms.

322.3 million – Current population of the United State.

$27.21 — The energy costs of lighting a six-foot Christmas tree, lit 12 hours a day for 40 days, decorated with various light types.

$1,200,000,000 – Estimated value of U.S. imports of Christmas tree ornaments from China between January and September 2015.

$24,500,000,000–Estimated retail sales by the nation’s department stores (including leased departments) in December 2014. This represents an estimated 41.2 percent jump from the previous month when retail sales were estimated at 17.3 billion.

800,000 – Number of new employees hired pensate for the holiday rush in 2015.

37.5 percent — Estimated percentage of charitable giving that occurs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

$830– Average amount people in the U.S. estimated they’ll spent in on Christmas presents in 2015.

108,000,000 — Average number of homes Santa Claus has to visit on December 25 (assuming there is at least one “nice” child in each).

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
How to keep cool over politics this Thanksgiving
Today at Mere Orthodoxy, I have an essay building on some of myrecentposts here exploring a healthy Christian response to plex results (other than “Trump won; Clinton lost”) of the 2016 presidential election. In particular, I focus on how to be true to the exhortation of St. Paul: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). I write, Writing to early Christians in Rome, St. Paul the Apostle offered a succinct summary of the Christian...
Who did Democrats forget?
In this week’s Acton Commentary I weigh in with some reflections on the US presidential results: “Naming, Blaming, and Lessons Learned from the 2016 Election.” I focus on much of the reaction on the Democratic side, which has understandably had some soul-searching to do. The gist of my argument is that “the New Left forgot the Old Left and got left out this election cycle.” For further elaborations on this theme, I mend the following: “The Real Forgotten Man Of...
Radio Free Acton: Daniel Garza on Latinos and the liberty movement
Daniel Garza at the Acton Lecture Series – November 17, 2016 On this edition of Radio Free Acton, we speak with Daniel Garza, Executive Director of The LIBREInitiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the principles and values of economic freedom within the munity. According to political conventional wisdom, the munity is a natural constituency of progressive politicians and part of an emerging progressive permanent majority in the United States. Garza counters this narrative by noting the fact that conservative...
Giving thanks for the miracle of the marketplace
Families across the country are aboutto celebrate Thanksgiving, expressing gratitude for God’s overwhelming grace and abundance. And yet even as we offer thanks to God for his provision — materially, socially, spiritually, or otherwise — how often do we pause and reflect on the freedoms and channels that God uses in the process? Will we remember that the very foods we are sure to enjoy on Thanksgiving Day required a great deal of investment, cultivation, and risk-taking? Will we reflect...
This Thanksgiving, be thankful for the low cost of food
While it may not seem like it when you’re at the supermarket checkout, Americans benefit tremendously from relatively low food prices. Consider the typical Thanksgiving feast. According to an informal price survey conducted by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving meal for ten people is $49.87—less than $5 per person. The AFBF survey shopping list includes turkey, bread stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie with whipped...
Thomas Sowell on poverty, politics, and the origins of prosperity
“The mundane progress driven by ordinary economic and social processes in a free society es dramatic only when its track record is viewed in retrospect over a span of years.” –Thomas Sowell In a recent edition of mon Knowledge, economist Thomas Sowell discusses his latest book, Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, which provides prehensive argument for the origins of prosperity. “There’s no explanation needed for poverty. The species began in poverty,” Sowell says. “So what you really need to know is...
Video: Daniel Garza on Latinos, the freedom agenda, and the 2016 elections
According to mon political narrative prior to the 2016 elections, progressivism has been ascendent and conservatism has been on an inevitable decline in America in significant part due to demographic changes. Among those changes is the growth of the Latino population, which is assumed to be a natural constituency for progressive politics. In the wake of the election, this may be one among many narratives that need to be re-thought. Evangelicals are one of the fastest growing segments in munities,...
North Korean regime would ‘collapse’ without free markets
Screenshot of Google Earth Satellite image of Chaeha Market in Sinuiju. Screenshot taken 11/23/2016. “If North Korea shuts downs markets, it will collapse too,” defector Cha Ri-hyuk explains. Satellite images and testimonies from those who have fled the oppressive regime of Kim Jong-un are demonstrating the power of markets. A new report from Hyung-Jin Kim looks at this phenomenon in the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea. These markets, jangamadangs, are primarily supplied with goods smuggled from China or South...
Graft and bribery are big government’s byproducts: EU studies
The nation of Spain is prosecuting 37 people – including former officials in the ruling center-Right party – for steering government contracts to their politically connected friends. It will not help the defensethat thesuspects gave themselves audacious, Godfather-inspired nicknames like Don Vito and “The Little Meatball.” While a disturbing example in itself, a series of studies show that corruption is ing a growing threat in the EU – and the larger the government, the greater the level of perfidy. The...
Did the unemployed give Trump his new job?
When you hear reports on the unemployment rate it’s usually a single number. For example, in October that number was 4.9 percent. But that single number is the national average, and can conceal a wide range at the state and local level. For instance, in September South Dakota and New Hampshire had the lowest rates in the country—2.9 percent—while six states (Nevada, Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Alaska) all had rates that were twice that number. Not surprisingly,...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved