Home › Holiday Gift Budget Calculator › How Much Do People Spend on Christmas?
How Much Do People Spend on Christmas?
Entry № 30 · logged Oct 18, 2026 · the holiday ledger, filed
Ask five surveys what Christmas costs and you will get five answers: $890, $778, $1,595, $1,552, $764. They are not contradicting each other. They are measuring different things, and once you see what each one counts, the real number snaps into focus.
The short answer: about $890 a person
The National Retail Federation's 2025 winter holiday survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, is the closest thing the industry has to an official figure: consumers planned to spend $890.49 per person on holiday gifts, food, decorations, and other seasonal items. That is the second-highest number in the survey's 23-year history, just 1.3% below 2024's record of $901.99. Of the $890.49, $627.93 goes to gifts for family, friends, and coworkers, and $262.56 goes to seasonal items like food, candy, decorations, and greeting cards. The gift-to-total split is almost exactly 70/30, a ratio worth remembering because it is the skeleton key for every other figure on this page.
The NRF also put the macroeconomic number on the table: November and December retail sales were forecast at $1.01 to $1.02 trillion, growing 3.7 to 4.2% over 2024, which would make 2025 the first holiday season to cross the trillion-dollar line. NRF's definition of the season is November 1 through December 31, and its sales math excludes car dealers, gas stations, and restaurants, so the trillion is core retail: the gift economy at national scale.
Planned 2025 holiday spending per person (NRF/Prosper Insights): $627.93 on gifts, $262.56 on food, decorations, and cards. Second-highest in 23 years.
The other four figures, and what each one counts
Gallup's long-running holiday poll asks a narrower question — gifts only — and gets a narrower answer: Americans expected to spend $1,007 per person on gifts in October 2025, then cut the figure to $778 by November. That $229 October-to-November drop was the largest Gallup has ever recorded, bigger than anything in the 2008 recession. The two Gallup numbers are not two estimates of the same thing; they are a before-and-after of consumer confidence collapsing in a single month, and the November figure is the one that resembles what was actually spent.
Deloitte asks the widest question and gets the widest answer: $1,595 per household across the entire holiday, down 10% from 2024. The household unit matters — Deloitte divides by front doors, not people. PwC lands at $1,552 per person but counts gifts, travel, and entertainment together, down 5%. And the American Research Group, which asks about gifts only like Gallup, found $764, down 6.8%. Put them in a row and they stop looking contradictory:
| Survey | Figure | What it counts | Change vs 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NRF / Prosper Insights | $890.49/person | Gifts + seasonal items | −1.3% |
| Gallup (Nov) | $778/person | Gifts only | −23.1% |
| American Research Group | $764/person | Gifts only | −6.8% |
| Deloitte | $1,595/household | Whole holiday | −10% |
| PwC | $1,552/person | Gifts + travel + entertainment | −5% |
The gift-only pair (Gallup $778, ARG $764) agree within $14. The per-person holiday pair (NRF $890, PwC $1,552) differ because PwC folds in travel and entertainment, which are the most elastic categories — the first things cut when budgets tighten. Deloitte's household figure implies about $640 to $800 per person in a typical household, squarely in the NRF neighborhood. Every survey is telling the same story with different denominators: holiday spending is historically high and currently falling.
The 2025 story: record intentions, fading confidence
The pattern across the surveys is the real finding, and it is a strange one. October intentions were near records: NRF's $890.49 was the second-highest ever, Gallup's October $1,007 was within a dollar of its 2024 record. Then November happened. Gallup's $229 plunge is the headline, but the directional signal shows up everywhere: Deloitte down 10%, PwC down 5%, ARG down 6.8%. Americans went into the 2025 season planning to spend like it was 2024 and finished planning like it was a downturn.
The surveys name the reasons. Eighty-five percent of holiday shoppers expected gifts to cost more because of tariffs, per the NRF survey — that is not a fringe anxiety, it is the consensus expectation of the shopping public. Deloitte found high-income households ($100,000+) did 64% of their holiday shopping online versus 49% of low-income households, and Numerator found 62% of consumers shopped big-box stores. The coping strategies are visible in the timing data too: 42% of shoppers planned to start before November, and 54% said they shop early specifically to spread out the budget. Early shopping is not enthusiasm; it is installment planning.
What the averages hide: the distribution
Per-person averages are as misleading for Christmas as they are for coffee. The NRF's $890 is a mean, and holiday spending is heavily skewed: a minority of big spenders pull the average up while the median household spends less. The income split in the Deloitte data hints at it — high-income households shop differently (more online, more total) than the sub-$50,000 households — but none of the public surveys publish a clean median. The practical takeaway is the tier one, not the average: gifts run about 70% of whatever your total is. A $500 holiday means roughly $350 in gifts; a $1,500 holiday means roughly $1,050. Scale the NRF split to your own number rather than adopting the $890 as a target.
The cultural constants underneath the numbers
Some figures barely move year to year, and they are the ones that say the most about what Christmas actually is. Ninety-two percent of U.S. households celebrate Christmas (Numerator), and 91% of adults plan to celebrate a winter holiday of some kind (NRF) — participation is essentially universal, which is why the spending aggregates are so large. CensusWide's 2025 data adds texture: 34.1% of men wanted gift vouchers for Christmas but only 21.8% received them, and 22.1% of men reported getting no presents at all. The gift economy has a long tail of disappointment that no spending figure captures. And the discovery layer keeps shifting: Statista found TikTok at 39% as a holiday shopping platform, ahead of Instagram at 35% and YouTube at 32%. The mall is being replaced by the feed, one unboxing video at a time.
Secondhand is the new frugal
One of the more interesting 2025 signals: the NRF reported in November that secondhand gifting was rising in popularity as consumers weighed higher prices. This is a genuine behavioral shift, not just belt-tightening — pre-loved gifts carry a sustainability story that makes them socially acceptable in a way that cheap gifts never were. It pairs with the oldest finding in the surveys: 63% of shoppers wait for Thanksgiving weekend to do most of their buying, up from 59% the year before. The 2025 consumer is bargain-hunting earlier, buying used without shame, and still spending near-record amounts. Frugality and spending are not opposites here; they are the same household doing both.
What to do with these numbers
The figures are benchmarks, not budgets. The useful move is the 70/30 split: decide your total first, multiply by 0.7 for the gift cap, and put names against it until the list fits. The ledger's defaults do exactly this — $890 total, $627 gift budget, ten prefilled names summing to $627 — and the savings plan turns whatever is left into a weekly number counted down to December 25. The surveys say the average American is spending $890 and feeling nervous about it. The plan says: decide your number in October, and December becomes a checkout, not a crisis.
Every survey agrees on the direction and disagrees on the level, because the level depends on the denominator and the direction does not. The useful number was never $890 or $778 or $1,595 — it is the 70/30 gift-to-total split, which survives every survey's methodology. Benchmarks tell you where the crowd stands; the split tells you how to stand somewhere deliberate. Pick your total, take 70% for gifts, and you have done more planning than most of the $890 average.
Sources: NRF 2025 holiday survey via Prosper Insights & Analytics ($890.49/person; gifts $627.93; seasonal $262.56; second-highest in 23 years; 85% expect tariff price hikes; 42% shop before November; 54% spread the budget; 60% finish in December; 63% wait for Thanksgiving weekend; 91% celebrate; secondhand gifting rising, Nov 2025); NRF holiday forecast ($1.01–$1.02T Nov–Dec sales, +3.7–4.2%); Gallup holiday spending poll (Oct $1,007 → Nov $778; $229 drop, 22.7%, largest Oct–Nov drop ever recorded); Deloitte holiday survey ($1,595/household, −10%; income split 64%/49% online); PwC holiday outlook ($1,552/person incl. travel & entertainment, −5%); American Research Group ($764 gifts, −6.8%); Numerator (92% celebrate, 62% big-box); Omnisend (87% started by Thanksgiving weekend 2025); Statista (TikTok 39%, Instagram 35%, YouTube 32%); CensusWide (34.1% of men wanted vouchers, 21.8% got them, 22.1% got nothing). Table figures via DemandSage compilation.
- How much does the average American spend on Christmas?
- About $890.49 per person in 2025, per the National Retail Federation: $627.93 on gifts for family and friends plus $262.56 on seasonal items like food, decorations, and cards. It was the second-highest figure in the survey's 23-year history.
- Why do Christmas spending estimates vary so much?
- They measure different things. Gallup's $778 and ARG's $764 count gifts only; the NRF's $890 adds seasonal items; PwC's $1,552 adds travel and entertainment; Deloitte's $1,595 is per household, not per person. The gift-only surveys agree within $14.
- Are Americans spending more or less on Christmas this year?
- Intentions started near records in October 2025, then faded: Gallup recorded its largest-ever October-to-November drop ($1,007 to $778), and Deloitte, PwC, and ARG all showed declines of 5–10%. The direction is down; the level is still historically high.
- What percentage of holiday spending goes to gifts?
- About 70%. The NRF's split is $627.93 in gifts out of $890.49 total (70.5%), with the remaining 30% on food, decorations, and cards. That ratio is the most useful planning number in the surveys.
- How many people celebrate Christmas in the US?
- About 92% of U.S. households celebrate Christmas (Numerator), and 91% of adults plan to celebrate a winter holiday of some kind (NRF). Participation is essentially universal, which is why the national spending aggregates run past a trillion dollars.
Keep reading
- Holiday Gift Budget CalculatorThe holiday ledger: cap the budget, list the gifts.
- How Much Should I Spend on Christmas Gifts?The playbook desk.
- The Christmas Budget Savings PlanThe countdown desk.
- Average Holiday Spending StatisticsThe data desk.
- How to Save on Christmas ShoppingThe playbook desk.