Some Christmas stats

[Winston]

The US Census Bureau estimates that $1.1 billion worth of Christmas tree ornaments and $346 million of Christmas tree lights were imported from China between January and September 2016. China accounted for 92% of the total US ornament imports and 87% of the total US tree light imports.

Last year there were 25.9 million real Christmas trees sold in the US, a 1.5% decrease versus 2014. In total, consumers spent $1.32bn on real trees (+27% yoy), according to the National Christmas Tree Association.

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree! The National Fire Protection Association reported that on average 210 home fires per year were ignited by Christmas trees (2010-2014), accounting for just 0.1% of the reported home fires.

According to the Guinness World Records, the largest Santa Claus gathering was over 18 thousand during an event in… India. The largest online Secret Santa game included 89,421 participants and was organized by redditgifts.com.

According to the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas (AORBS), which had 1,100 members as of 2006 but has since folded, the average Santa is 59 yrs old, 5’10” tall & weighs in at 257 lbs.

The elves are hard at work in the US. The states with the most production facilities of dolls, toys and games were California (93), Florida (32), Illinois (31), New York (31) and Pennsylvania (25) in 2014.

The US Postal Service expects December 19 to be the busiest day for shipping and December 22 to be the busiest day for delivery of holiday packages, cards and letters. They're expecting more than 30 million packages to be delivered on the peak delivery day alone.

Where's the Christmas spirit? According to Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes, since 1980 the top 20 grossing Christmas themed movies of all time only received an average critic score of 49% on Rotten Tomatoes. The best: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (94%). The worst: Christmas with the Kranks (5%).

 

[Hobie1dog]

The sad part is that 20K people die each and every day during the holidays of starvation, while that 1.3 billion is spent on a vanity item like live trees, and 1.4 billion on ornaments of pure bling, year after year, then getting thrown in the attic the other 11 months of the year. The ironic part is that it is supposed to be the "giving" season.

 

[Winston]

The sad part is that 20K people die each and every day during the holidays of starvation, while that 1.3 billion is spent on a vanity item like live trees, and 1.4 billion on ornaments of pure bling, year after year, then getting thrown in the attic the other 11 months of the year. The ironic part is that it is supposed to be the "giving" season.

Well, at least we're employing hundreds of millions of Chinese who used to be literally starving to death by buying the Christmas bling and gifts they make and they aren't starving now as a result, right? Capitalism and to a lesser but still very significant extent, CRONY capitalism (most of the what we have in the world) raises all boats.