The 12 SHOCKING Ranker Facts of Christmas
Our data tells us some surprising things about everything we love (and hate) about the holiday season
(Photo: 20th Century Fox) Hopefully these facts won’t shock you as badly as poor Merv here was shocked during Home Alone 2
Christmas is a time for traditions — we gather with our family and friends to watch the same movies and TV specials, enjoy the same meals, and hear the same songs. And while part of the fun is taking part in all the classics, once you’ve been through enough holiday seasons, you can’t help but start to pick favorites. So which parts of the holidays do people really love, and which ones could they do without?
We pored over the results of some of Ranker’s biggest and most contentious Christmas rankings to offer some answers. Below are 12 of the most surprising things we found out about how people across the country, generations, and gender feel about the holidays — one for each of the canonical 12 days of Christmas!
The West Coast Is Wacky About Holiday Movies
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Maybe it’s the sunny weather in places like Hawaii and California, but the West Coast has some holiday movie preferences that make it very different from the rest of the country. After analyzing the results of our “Best Christmas Movies of All Time” list (around 400K votes, 29K voters), we found that the region’s No. 1 overall pick is Scrooged, the Bill Murray-led reboot of A Christmas Carol. Oregon is 4 times more likely to vote for The Santa Clause 2 than the rest of the country, while Californians are 5 times more likely to vote for Ernest Saves Christmas. And people from Washington are 5 times more likely to vote up White Christmas, a forgotten 1942 comedy starring Bing Crosby that was mostly used as a vehicle for Crosby’s far more popular song.
2. Women Hate You, Charlie Brown!
Photo: Sony Music Entertainment
According to the same list, men and women tend to vote similarly when it comes to holiday movies, with one big exception: A Charlie Brown Christmas. The 1965 animated Peanuts classic is a very strong No. 4 overall among men. But women were three times more likely to vote it down than up, putting it near the very bottom of their list. Who knew Charlie Brown’s problems with the ladies were this bad?
3. The Ron Howard Movie That Ruined The Grinch That Stole Christmas
Photo: NBC Universal
The original animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a Top 3 choice for both older and middle-aged voters, but young readers put it all the way down at No. 43! Maybe they’re a little too young to appreciate the original — or they’re still traumatized from seeing the 2000 Jim Carey version when they were kids.
4. Sing the Controversy
It wasn’t until recently that the Christmas classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was called out for having some questionable themes in it, and the resulting controversy has had a big impact — but not in the way you think. In fact, the song has steadily climbed up our list of “The Best Christmas Songs of All Time” (around 83K votes, 13K voters) since 2014 — around the same time feminist criticism of the lyrics reached its peak. Turns out studying the lyrics of a song to see if it’s problematic can actually get the tune stuck in your head!
(Photo: Ranker) As this chart shows, the controversial song made a sudden jump up the list to crack the Top 20 just before 2015, and has hovered around that same position ever since (the y-axis here represents list position).
5. Can You Recall the Most Hated Christmas Song of All?
Photo: Sony Music
The least popular Christmas song on our exhaustive list is “Abigail’s Song,” a tune from the Dr. Who soundtrack with 100 downvotes and only 16 upvotes. Some better known tracks further the bottom of the list include ‘N Sync’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” at No. 140, “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” at No. 110, and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” at No. 137.
6. We’re All Dreaming of a White Christmas
Photo: Universal
The holidays might be a time famous for quibbling reunited families, but at least there’s one thing people seem to agree on. People consistently rank “White Christmas” as the No. 1 greatest Christmas song of all time, regardless of both age and gender. Who knew it had such cross-cultural appeal?
7. Santa and Sweets
Photo: pxhere
According to our “Your Favorite Foods to Eat on Christmas” list (around 15K votes, 800 voters), both younger and older Ranker readers mainly see Christmas as an opportunity to eat sweets — hot chocolate, gingerbread, fudge, and cookies. Those in the middle (from age 30 to 50 years old) also look forward to mashed potatoes, stuffing, and eggnog every holiday season.
8. A Dinner Divided
Photo: Unsplash
Forget Trump: the most divisive dinnertime discussion topic this Christmas is the dinner itself. It turns out that consistently “blue,” left-leaning states are eight times more likely to vote up turkey on their list of top Christmas foods, while those in Republican states are four times as likely to prefer ham as their entree.
9. Snacking for Two
Photo: Unsplash
Naturally, “Christmas cookies” — whether they’re gingerbread, shortbread, or just cut out in the shape of a pine tree — are high on the list of best foods to eat during the holidays, but that’s not the only list they’re ranked on. They’re also on our list of the “Most Craveable Foods When You’re Pregnant” (around 18K votes, 1K voters), which presumably means they’re craved all year round. I guess that means everyone appreciates this seasonal treat — including people who haven’t been born yet.
10. Hoppy Holidays
Photo: Pixabay
Millennials: they’re all smartphone-obsessed, fixie-riding, IPA-swilling hipsters, right? Wrong! Well, at least about the IPA part.
Despite their reputation, younger readers are the only age group that doesn’t have an IPA in their Top 5 on our list of “The Very Best Christmas Beers” (around 3K votes, 500 voters).
11. Grinches of the East Coast
Photo: Pinterest
People everywhere tend to get sick of hearing “Jingle Bell Rock” pretty quickly, but no one hates it more than those living on the eastern seaboard. According to our list of “The Absolute Worst Things About the Holiday Season” (around 13K votes, 1K voters), people’s least favorite thing about the holidays is “Going Broke Buying Gifts” — that is, except for the Northeast, who hate “Holiday Music On Repeat” more than anything else. Maybe it’s that people in more urban areas tend to spend more time in commercial spaces where they’re constantly piping the same 10 holiday songs. Or it could be that everyone in the east is a total Grinch.
12. Home Is Where the Awkward Conversation Is
Photo: Warner Brothers