Clever, a real estate data company, released a new survey that found Florida is the state with the most holiday spirit in 2021 of all 50 states and the District of Columbia:
Florida has the most holiday spirit based on shopping data, online searches, and charitable donations — followed by Utah and Idaho. Hawaii, Connecticut, and New Mexico have the least holiday spirit, according to our rankings.
The company used data from shopping, holiday-related searches, and charitable donations to determine the results:
- Holiday Shopping (40%): To evaluate holiday shopping, we used data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to find out how much the average person spends annually on recreational goods such as gifts in each state (as well as the percentage of their annual income spent on these goods). We also considered how well states weathered the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at the change in spending patterns from 2019 to 2020.
- Holiday Searches (30%): We used Google Trends to measure YouTube searches for “Christmas music” and Google searches for “Black Friday deals near me.” (Search interest is the percentage of searches for a term compared to the search percentage in other states.)
- Charitable Donations (30%): With Salvation Army’s Red Kettles ringing in the season, we evaluated state residents’ charitable donations by analyzing the total dollars donated in 2020 and the number of Red Kettles per 10,000 residents.
Thanks, Gov. Ron DeSantis! From their survey:
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Although it’s not a winter wonderland, Florida has plenty of holiday spirit — particularly when it comes to shopping. The average Floridian spent $1,769 on recreational goods such as gifts in 2020, equivalent to 3.3% of their average income. This was significantly higher than the national average of 2.5% and the ninth-highest spending-to-income ratio in the country.
However, all that shopping doesn’t mean Floridians act like Scrooge. The state ranked third nationally in donations to the Salvation Army in 2020, filling Red Kettles with $7.1 million in donations during the 2020 holiday season.
Those interested in seeing how the Sunshine State celebrates every winter can witness Surfing Santas, a 35-foot sand tree, or one of Florida’s many famous light displays.
As for states on the Naughty List, Hawaii is the No. 1 “Grinch” state in the nation, followed closely by other blue-states like Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York, of course:
And that, boys and girls, is just another reason why you should move to Florida. 🙂
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