By Zach Hester, Reporter • zach@southerntorch.com
ALABAMA — A new study by GetCenturyLink has found Alabama to be the state with the fifth-highest Christmas spirit across the nation.
According to the study, Tennessee was ranked as the state with the most Christmas spirit followed by North Carolina, Utah, Ohio, and Alabama. The states with the least Christmas spirit were Arizona, Florida, California, Hawaii, and Nevada...all states with a very small likelihood of seeing snow on Christmas day.
In order to determine which states have the most Christmas spirit, the team at GetCenturyLink added online Christmas activity with area culture to get a composite score.
The parameters for the study included:
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%)
Other interesting finds from the study include:
- 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 entire population of Switzerland (which is only 8,591,365)
- 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
- Alaska, a state that can definitely depend on a white Christmas, ranked a distant 40th overall, but took the top prize in two different categories: Christmas tweets and searches for ‘Christmas Cards’ on Google shopping
- Utah gets the top spot for being the most giving state. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Beehive State donated 4.8% of their adjusted income in 2018.
