Christmas by the Numbers [Infographic]

I came across this terrific infographic recently on History.com I thought I would share. It has some fun and interesting numbers on Christmas in America. Things like, how Americans observe Christmas, how many Christmas trees are bought each year, how big the Rockefeller Christmas tree is, how many pieces of mail the U.S. Postal Service sends during the holidays, and more! Check them out

How do Americans observe Christmas?

• 95% say they celebrate the holiday
• 93% exchange gifts
• 74% go to Christmas parties
• 65% attend religious services
• 88% put up a Christmas tree.

New York's Rockefeller Center

• Raising and adorning its iconic tree for 80+ Christmases.
• 1931 - 20-foot fir tree was erected by construction workers on Christmas Eve
• 1933 - 50-foot tree unveiled at the first official lighting ceremony
• 1999 - 100-foot, 100-year-old, 10-ton Norway spruce is biggest yet
• 2007 - 30,000 energy efficient LEDs make the tradition more eco-friendly

Number of Christmas Trees

• Americans buy 25-30 million real trees and 8-12 million artificial trees each Christmas season.
• 350 million Christmas trees are growing on U.S. tree farms.
• The most common Christmas tree species include
  • Balsam fir
  • Douglas fir
  • Fraser fir
  • Noble fir
  • Scotch pine
  • Virginia pine
  • White pine
  • Norway spruce
  • Blue spruce
• The record number of lights on a Christmas tree is 194,672, achieved in Belgium in 2010
• Value of the most expensively decorated Christmas tree displayed in the world, Emirates Palace (UAE) in 2010, $11,026,900

Top Christmas tree producers

• Washington
• Oregon
• Wisconsin
• Michigan
• Pennsylvania
• North Carolina

U.S. Towns with Christmas-y Names

• North Pole, AK
• Santa Claus, GA
• Santa Claus, IN
• Noel, MO
• Rudolph, WI
• Dasher, GA
• Snowflake, AZ
• Holly Springs, MI

Candy Canes

• The U.S produces 1.76 billion candy canes each year.
• Laid end to end, they would stretch for nearly 167,000 miles and could circle the equator 6.7 times.

Christmas Mail and Package

• Americans send 1.5 billion Christmas cards annually.
• Roughly 30% of the population visits a post office during the holidays.
• American military installations overseas receive 30 million pounds of holiday mail each year.
• The U.S. Postal Service sells over 1.3 billion winter holiday stamps a year, amounting to 10 percent of annual stamp sales.
• The U.S. Postal Service delivers 15.8 billion cards, letters, and packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.

 Source: History.com