How Much Does Your State Love Christmas?

Kylie McQuarrie

There are a few ways to do Christmas. Some people go the traditional route: they’ll prop up a tree, string lights, and swap presents. Others ditch the decorations, book a cruise, and head for warmer weather. 

How much is your state into the wintertime holiday? It varies. Southern states like Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama have the most Yuletide cheer, ranking the highest for jamming to Christmas tunes and tweeting about the season. Meanwhile, sunnier states like Hawaii, Nevada, and Florida rank low for festive zeal.   

How seriously does your state deck the halls? The team at GetCenturyLink did some hardcore digging to find out. See if your state boasts Whoville-worthy Christmas spirit, or if it’s the grinchiest of them all. 

Interesting Finds 

• 25 to 30 million Christmas trees are sold in the US every year. To put that in perspective, that’s more than trees than the enture population of Switzerland (which is only 8,591,365). 

• The bottom five states (Nevada, Hawaii, California, Florida, and Arizona) all share a low chance of having a white Christmas. Perhaps the lack of snow points to why it’s harder for these warmer states to tap into their Holiday cheer.  

• The most expensive Christmas tree ornament in the world goes for $130,000. It includes 1,578 diamonds, 18-carat white gold, and 188 red rubies. Sound a bit ridiculous? It is, but all proceeds go to charity, which we can get behind. 

• Tennessee has the most Christmas spirit, scoring a top ten ranking in the categories Christmas tweets, Christmas music listening, and Google searches for “Christmas movies.”

• Alaska scored a sad ranking of 40th overall, but it snagged the #1 ranking in two different categories: Christmas tweets and searches for ‘Christmas Cards’ on Google shopping. 

• Utah gets the top prize for being the most giving state. According to the IRS, the Beehive State donated 4.8% of their adjusted income in 2018.  

Methodology

To determine which US states have the most Christmas spirit, GetCenturyLink’s data analysis team put their heads together to compare data in two main categories: online activity and area culture. 

We analyzed each category using ten metrics listed below. We finalized our Christmas spirit ranking by calculating the weighted average for each state across all metrics. 

Online Activity

• Google searches for Christmas movies and gingerbread houses (29%)

• Google shopping trends for wrapping paper, Christmas cards, Christmas ornaments, and “elf on a shelf” (28%)

• Number of Christmas songs streamed (14.5%)

• Number of tweets related to Christmas (7%)

Area Culture 

• Number of Christmas tree farms per capita (7%)

• Amount of charitable donations (14.5%)

The States with the Most Christmas Spirit, Ranked Highest to Lowest 

1. Tennessee

2. North Carolina

3. Utah

4. Ohio

5. Alabama

6. South Carolina

7. Pennsylvania

8. Oregon

9. Rhode Island

10. Kansas

11. Maine

12. New Hampshire

13. Missouri

14. Idaho

15. Vermont

16. South Dakota

17. Iowa

18. Wisconsin

19. West Virginia

20. Montana

21. Washington

22. Nebraska

23. Massachusetts

24. Mississippi

25. Kentucky

26. Indiana

27. Connecticut

28. Oklahoma

29. Colorado

30. Virginia

31. Maryland

32. Georgia

33. New York

34. Minnesota

35. Arkansas

36. Illinois

37. Wyoming

38. North Dakota

39. Louisiana

40. Alaska

41. Michigan

42. Delaware

43. Texas

44. New Mexico

45. New Jersey

46. Arizona

47. Florida

48. California

49. Hawaii

50. Nevada

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