‘TIS THE SEASON
From
shopping malls to decking the halls, it’s beginning to look a lot
like Christmas. Read MERIC’s holiday fun facts from the chance of
having snow to picking your favorite Christmas tree. Have a holly
jolly Christmas!
White Christmas
22
The number of Christmas mornings that have been white
or had an inch or more of snow on the ground in the past 114 years
in St. Louis.
19%
The
percent chance of having a white Christmas in St. Louis this year.
2005
The year
of the last white Christmas in St. Louis when one inch of snow was
observed Christmas morning.
Santa’s Helpers
$21 billion
Value
of retail sales by electronic shopping and mail-order houses in
December 2006 — the highest total for any month last year.
1.7 million
The number of people employed at department stores in December 2006.
Retail employment typically swells during the holiday season, last
year rising by an estimated 40,600 from November and 174,700 from
October.
28 percent
The proportion of growth in inventories by our nation’s department
stores (excluding leased departments) through Aug. 31 to Nov. 30,
2006. Thanks to the holiday crowds, inventories plummeted by 23
percent in December 2006.
7 hours
The time it takes the
average mall to decorate for the holiday season, with some taking as
long as 20 hours.
Jingle
Bells
The most frequently
played holiday song in shopping malls last year.
White
Christmas
The second most
frequently played holiday song last year in shopping malls.
97.1%
The percentage of
malls with extended holiday hours. On average they begin November
23, the day after Thanksgiving.
64.5%
The percentage of mall
based gift certificates/cards redeemed during the month of January.
2,640
The average number of
gifts wrapped per mall for the 2006 holiday season.
Green
Forest Facts
Pine and
Fir
The best selling types
of Christmas tree including: Scotch pine, Douglas fir, Noble fir,
Fraser fir, Virginia pine, Balsam fir and white pine.
50
The number of states
that grow Christmas trees, including Hawaii and Alaska.
7 to 10
The average number of
years it takes for a Christmas tree to mature.
21,000
The
number of Christmas tree growers in the United States.
12,000
The
number of cut-your-own farms in the United States.
92,483
Missouri’s crop of cut
Christmas trees, last reported for 2002.
Environmental friendly
Farm-raised Christmas
trees remove dust and pollen from the air and are often recycled.
Sources:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/?n=whitechristmas
http://www.bls.gov
http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/mrts.html
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/trees/treefacts.html
http://www.icsc.org/
http://www.agcensus.usda.gov
