Washington, DC…The holidays are a time for gathering and celebrating with family and friends, gift-giving, reflection and thanks. To commemorate this time of year, the U.S. Census Bureau joins in the fun with a list of holiday-related facts and figures from its vast collection of statistics. Every Day is Christmas in Noel, Mo.
Places with festive names include a dozen named Holly — Mount Holly, N.C. (population 15,635), and Holly Springs, Miss. (7,621), among them. There is also Snowflake, Ariz. (population 5,753); Santa Claus town, Ind. (2,411); North Pole, Alaska (2,101); Noel, Mo. (1,817); and — remember Santa’s reindeer — Dasher, Ga. (991), and Rudolph, Wis. (424).

Holiday Jobs
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey collects data on 526 occupations. While it doesn’t count the number of Santa Clauses hired for the holidays, it does count 14 occupations related to sales, starting with marketing and sales managers (863,652 estimated in 2017).

There are 557 locations nationwide that primarily produced dolls, toys and games in 2016. They employed 6,311 workers and paid $281 million in annual payroll.

California led the nation with 90 establishments. Check out all the states and years back to 2005 from the source: 2016 County Business Patterns.

The Monthly Retail Trade Survey, the Annual Retail Trade Survey, and the Quarterly E-Commerce Report work together to produce the most comprehensive data available on retail economic activity in the United States.

The estimated retail sales by electronic shopping and mail-order houses in December 2017: $67 billion, an increase of 9.4 percent from the previous year and the highest estimated total for any month in 2017.

The estimated retail sales by the nation’s department stores (including leased departments) in December 2016: $21.6 billion, a decrease of $53 million in retail sales from December 2016.

The estimated percentage for total sales in December 2017 for jewelry stores: 19.0 percent (see chart below).
The December sales accounted for hobby, toy and game stores in 2017: 17.8 percent.

We Import a Lot of Our Christmas Decorations
The Census Bureau’s data tool USA Trade Online is the Official Source of Trade Statistics (free to all users). It shows us how much of our Christmas decorations we import:

$1.7 billion worth of Christmas ornaments from China in 2017. China led the way with 92.1 percent of the U.S. total imports of Christmas ornaments.

$402.0 million in Christmas tree lights from China in 2017. China led the way with 84.6 percent of the total U.S. imports of Christmas tree lights.

By Derick Moore, A senior communications specialist at the Census Bureau.