With an expected per-person spending of $875, no other holiday rooted in long-standing tradition comes close to the winter holiday season, which starts on November 1 and ends on December 31.

As Statista's Florian Zandt reports, data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) shows that spending for the runner-up, Mother's Day, only amounts to one third of Thanksgiving and Christmas consumer spending, with no other seasonal event coming close.

While Mother's Day spending stood at $274 per person in 2023, Father's Day, Valentine's Day and Easter ranged between $192 and $196 in the past year.

Halloween, where money is mostly spent on costumes and decorations according to additional data from the NRF, comes in sixth with an expected per-person spend of $108. While most of the holidays featured on the list have roots in history reaching back hundreds to thousands of years, the Super Bowl is a relatively new phenomenon. This fact notwithstanding, U.S. Americans on average still spend $85 per person on arguably the most important U.S. sports event of the year.

When taking into account not just festivities connected to specific celebrations, two other occasions take the first and second spots in the ranking: Back-to-college and back-to-school. However, these two events are not comparable to the rest of the list, since the average expected spending of $1,367 and $890, respectively, is calculated by household and not per person. Having more than one individual per household in need of school supplies, clothing or electronics for the new school year can skew the results. Therefore, it's likely that even while the per- household figures for back-to-college and back-to-school are higher, the winter holiday season still ranks first in individual spending

Poster Comment:

Bah Humbug!!

This galloping horse spends zip on Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners as he is a vegetarian.

My mother passed on over 30 years ago in her 70s. Her mother lived to be in her 80s. They both smoked but grandma gave it up before she turned 40 so she lived 10 years longer. Neither one took fish oil as a supplement which helps smokers live longer. Also good for non-smokers.

I am a bachelor so I never needed a Christmas tree.

I explained to a 5 year-old that my only pets are the spiders in my apartment. They eat the insects walking across the floor that I don't stomp on.