Holiday Tidbits

Not surprisingly, the winter holidays top the charts for total spending, according to the National Retail Federation, clocking in at just under $470 billion for 2007. According to Hallmark, Christmas is also the top card-sending holiday at 2.2 billion (a number, however, which includes boxed as well as individual greeting cards), followed by Valentine's and Mother's Day.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Christmas and Hanukkah together even beat out Mother's and Valentine's Day when it comes to fresh florals, according to the Society of American Florists. The winter occasions reach 30 percent in dollar volume and transactions alike, compared to 24 percent of transactions for moms and 20 percent for sweethearts. The difference may be a matter of who's doing the buying and for whom: Of the floral products purchased for Christmas/Hanukkah, 81 percent are bought by women, and 57 percent are for the buyers themselves.

When it comes to larger foliage, consumers are buying many more real Christmas trees than fake ones (of course, real trees must be rebought every year.) According to the National Christmas Tree Association, in 2006 Americans bought 28.6 million real trees for about $40 each, for a retail value of $1.2 billion; though they only bought 9.3 million fake trees, the higher ticket price of $68 brought the retail total to $631 million. And the market's not saturated yet; despite all those who already bought fake firs in previous years, plastic's numbers have climbed from 7.3 million in 2001.

To go on that tree, Foreign Trade Statistics report the U.S. imported $142.6 million in Christmas tree ornaments from China between January and June 2007. China was also the leading foreign source of artificial Christmas trees shipped to the United States ($13.4 million worth) during the same period. And to go under the tree, the U.S. imported $3.3 billion in toys from China in the same period.