Christmas gets a head start in the UK, says Google
Britons begin thinking about Christmas earlier than any other nationality, Google searches shows. British internet users conducted the most searches globally for “Christmas” in August, and the UK has had the strongest search interest on Christmas for the past four years.
BRITONS begin thinking about Christmas earlier than any other nationality, Google searches shows.
The search engine’s own analysis of internet users’ search terms found people in the UK make more Christmas searches than anywhere else in the world, including the US.
Interest starts to pick up as early as August and begins to rise steeply at the end of October, just before the socalled Black Friday day of shopping sales.
British internet users conducted the most searches globally for Christmas in August 2017, a trend which continued into December.
The UK has had the strongest search interest on Christmas-related topics for the past four years.
Previously Ireland was the most Christmas-obsessed nation, but it has now fallen to second place, ahead of Slovakia and Italy.
The US is ranked in sixth place, with search interest more than a third lower than in the UK, the data shows.
Within Britain there was a large disparity, with some towns apparently feeling far more Christmassy than others.
The Lincolnshire village of Keelby has a higher proportion of Christmasrelated searches than any other town in the UK, scoring 100. Villagers told the BBC that there is a strong local tradition of decorating houses in Christmas lights and ornaments during the festive season.
Meanwhile, the most Scrooge-like town appeared to be Burnham in greater London, which had the lowest Christmas search score of five. Burnham is the hometown of Mike Ashley, the billionaire Sports Direct businessman, and comedian Jimmy Carr went to school there.
Google’s data show the proportion of searches that relate to Christmas as a percentage of all searches in the given area and time period, with a score of 100 showing the highest percentage.
According to retail experts, UK consumers are doing their Christmas shopping earlier than ever.
Between 2013 and 2016 the number of people shopping for lights and Christmas decorations in October doubled, while those shopping for Christmas trees increased from six to 18 per cent of respondents, according to Globaldata Retail’s yearly Christmas tracker.
The reason for this increasingly early festive shopping is most likely due to the rising costs associated with Christmas, coupled with a squeeze on household budgets, it said.
Meanwhile families are being warned to avoid Christmas Eve shopping this year. As it falls on a Sunday, shops will open late and close as early as 4pm.