A Canadian Christmas... By The Numbers

Shop ‘til you drop

$804 – the average amount each Canadian consumer  spent in December 2004. This was almost $250 more than they spent on average during any other given month of the year. Albertans were the biggest spenders, spending $967 during the month followed closely by shoppers in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Three times - the amount by which toy, hobby and games store sales grew in December 2004 compared with an average month. Other stores enjoying triple sales growth during December 2004 were jewellery, luggage and leather goods stores and music stores.

One-fifth – the proportion of annual revenue generated by toy and hobby stores during December last year. Retailers who specialize in sales of sound and video recordings such as DVDs and CDs also took in one-fifth of their annual revenue during December.

$34.5 billion – the amount of money Canadian shoppers spent in December 2004, up 6.9% from the previous December.

$3.2 billion – the amount of money Canadians spent in department stores in December 2004, by far the leader in total sales among all categories of stores last December. Beer, wine and liquor stores reported the second highest total sales during that period, followed by appliance, television and other electronic stores, family clothing stores and sporting goods stores. Toy, hobby and game stores ranked ninth in total sales with $296 million.

Gift cards: The gift that may be changing shopping patterns

68% - the proportion of stores offering gift cards during the 2004 Christmas season. That was considerably higher than the 53% that offered gift cards the previous Christmas season, according to a survey of 80 of the largest retailers selling clothing, home furnishings, electronics and sporting goods.

Sales in January 2005 were 38.5% lower than the monthly average for 2004. However, this was an improvement compared with the same month a year earlier, when sales were 40.3% below the monthly average in 2002. This moderation in the traditional drop in sales between January and December may be partly a result of gift card redemptions in the New Year.

What are last-minute shoppers buying?

65.3% - the jump in sales for Canadian retailers selling less expensive items such as CDs and toys in December 2004 compared with the monthly average for the whole year. Last year’s December sales rush followed a relatively quiet November, suggesting that a lot of shoppers tend to wait until the last minute to buy less expensive gifts.

On the other hand, November seems to be the month when many shoppers buy big ticket items such as furniture, electronic equipment and appliances. Retailers selling these expensive items saw sales increase 12.4% compared with the monthly average for the entire year.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

2,933 – the number of farms in Canada that grew Christmas trees for sale, according to the 2001 Census of Agriculture. In all, 37,612 hectares of land were planted with Christmas trees.

918 – the number of farms that grew Christmas trees for sale in 2001 in Ontario, the province with the highest total. Nova Scotia followed with 535 farms and British Columbia with 526.

Proportionally, Nova Scotia produced just over one-quarter of the total acreage in Canada, highest among the provinces, followed closely by Ontario and Quebec. Combined, these three provinces accounted for nearly three-quarters of the nation’s crop of Christmas trees in 2001.

$48 million – the total value of Christmas trees and other Christmas articles exported in 2004, up 8% from a year earlier. The overwhelming majority (99%) of these exports were to the United States. 

Some festively named places in Canada:

Click on the place names for a map generator.

Christmas Island, Nova Scotia.

Reindeer Station, Northwest Territories

Gift Lake, Alberta.

Stocking Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador

Chimney Lake, British Columbia

Holly, Ontario

Sled Lake, Saskatchewan