GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Michigan has some great Christmas traditions like Bronners Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Holiday Nights in Greenfield Village and the Festival of the Trees at Frederik Meijer Gardens.
Compared to the rest of the country, however, Michiganders are a seemingly bunch of Grinches.
According to a study done by GetCenturyLink, Michigan ranks 41st out of the 50 states in terms of Christmas spirit.
To gather data, GetCenturyLink's data analysis team put their heads together to compare data in two categories — online activity and area culture. Online activity included:
- 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%)
Data for area culture included:
- Number of Christmas tree farms per capita (7%)
- Amount of charitable donations (14.5%)
Coming in at No. 1 overall was Tennessee. They were followed by North Carolina, Utah, Ohio (boo!) and Alabama to round out the top five.
Tennessee had a top 10 ranking in Christmas tweets, Christmas music listening and Google searches for Christmas movies.
Utah got the top prize for being the most giving state. According to the IRS, folks in Utah donated 4.8% of their adjusted income in 2018.
In the bottom five are some of the warmest states in the country: Arizona, Florida, California, Hawaii and Nevada.
The study also found a couple of interesting facts about Christmas trees and ornaments:
- 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. Sound a bit ridiculous? It is, but all proceeds go to charity.
- 25 to 30 million Christmas trees are sold in the U.S. every year. To put that in perspective, that’s more than trees than the entire population of Switzerland (which is only 8,591,365).
So, Michiganders, it looks like we have to step our game up in terms of Christmas spirit.
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