People can be cynical about the holidays, especially in a world where Thanksgiving itself has become a jumping-off platform to Black Friday and a month of frantic consumerism. But according to a new study from Etsy, things aren’t that bad.
Etsy conducted a survey of holiday shopping habits, and one particular statistic tugged our heartstrings: 85.9 percent of respondents said they prefer giving gifts to receiving them.
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Their reasoning? Fifty-nine percent of people polled said they “enjoy making other people happy,” Fifteen percent said, “It shows love,” and 11 percent said, “It allows me to be creative.” And though many of us feign embarrassment when someone rips into our present to them right then and there, it turns out that 57 percent of us actually like it when someone opens their gift in front of us.
If you’re already feeling anxious about getting your holiday shopping done, don’t worry. Only 25 percent of us do holiday shopping throughout the year, with most people picking up presents one to two months before the holidays. Of course, there are the procrastinators — 12 percent buy all their presents two weeks or less before the holidays (and 2 percent don’t buy presents at all).
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Now that Halloween is over and the stores are already decorated with Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s paraphernalia, we can all look forward to gift-giving season. And yes, we have to admit — as much as we love showering others with presents, there’s a part of us that’s just as excited to receive some goodies ourselves. Hey, we’re only human!
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