Key Takeaways
NRF's fall 2025 survey put average per-person winter-holiday spending at $890.49, the second-highest figure in the survey's 23-year history, with $627.93 of that going to gifts.
NRF forecast $1.01 trillion to $1.02 trillion in November-and-December 2025 US retail sales, a forecast of the season’s first total above $1 trillion, not proof of realized sales.
NRF's 2026 survey put Valentine's Day spending at a record $29.1 billion, up from $27.5 billion in 2025.
NRF's 2026 survey put Easter spending at a record $24.9 billion, with per-person spending at a record $195.59.
NRF's 2026 survey put Mother's Day spending at a record $38 billion, led by $7.5 billion on jewelry.
NRF's 2026 survey put Father's Day spending at a record $27.9 billion, with 77% of consumers planning to celebrate.
NRF's 2026 Halloween survey projected spending at a record $13.5 billion, up from $13.1 billion in 2025, with 74% of consumers planning to celebrate.
NRF's 2026 survey put Super Bowl spending at a record $20.2 billion, with 213.1 million US adults planning to watch.
NRF's 2026 survey put K-12 back-to-school spending at a record $43.3 billion and college spending projected at a record $103.5 billion, the first projection above $100 billion for college shopping.
PwC's newest Holiday Outlook, published September 8, 2026, projects average expected consumer holiday gift spending of $708 in 2026, a 2% dip from 2025.
PwC found millennials cutting 2026 holiday gift budgets 10% and travel budgets 37% year over year, even though they remain the season's biggest spenders overall.
LendingTree's December 2025 survey found 37% of respondents had taken on holiday debt by the December survey, averaging $1,223, up from $1,181 in 2024.
LendingTree's November 2025 survey found potential Thanksgiving hosts planned to spend $487 on food, drinks, and decor, up 13% from $431 in 2024.
NRF's 2026 figures put St. Patrick's Day per-person spending at a record $47.45 and Independence Day per-person food spending at a record $94.41.
How much are Americans spending on the winter holidays?
The most recent complete answer comes from NRF's fall 2025 survey, since NRF typically publishes its winter-holiday forecast every October and won't release 2026-season numbers until then. Consumers told NRF's Prosper Insights & Analytics survey they planned to spend an average of $890.49 on gifts, food, decorations, and other seasonal items in 2025, the second-highest figure the survey has recorded in its 23-year history and just short of 2024's record $901.99. Of that total, $627.93 goes to gifts for family and friends, with the remaining $262.56 covering food, decorations, and greeting cards.
NRF's parallel retail forecast projected total November-and-December 2025 sales of $1.01 trillion to $1.02 trillion, a projection of the first total above $1 trillion, on forecast growth of 3.7% to 4.2% over 2024. Retailers expected to hire between 265,000 and 365,000 seasonal workers, down from 442,000 seasonal hires in 2024. Ninety-one percent of consumers said they planned to celebrate winter holidays such as Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, and a record 186.9 million people said they planned to shop between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday.
What did the individual 2026 surveys project?
NRF's 2026 Valentine's Day survey projected total spending at a record $29.1 billion, up from $27.5 billion in 2025, $23.9 billion in 2022, and $18.2 billion nine years earlier in 2017. Average per-person planned spending reached a record $199.78, up from $188.81 in 2025 and above the previous record of $196.31 set in 2020.
NRF's 2026 Easter survey projected total spending at a record $24.9 billion, up from $23.6 billion in 2025, with average per-person spending reaching a record $195.59.
NRF's 2026 Mother's Day survey projected total spending at a record $38 billion, up from $34.1 billion in 2025, $33.5 billion in 2024, and a then-record $35.7 billion in 2023, meaning 2026 is only the second year the holiday has topped $35 billion. Average per-person planned spending reached a record $284.25, up from $259.04 in 2025.
NRF's 2026 Father's Day survey projected total spending at a record $27.9 billion, up from a then-record $24 billion in 2025 and $22.4 billion in 2024. Seventy-seven percent of consumers said they planned to celebrate, and average per-person spending reached $226.58.
NRF's holiday-trends pages list St. Patrick's Day per-person spending at a record $47.45 in 2026, with 60% of consumers planning to celebrate, and Independence Day per-person food spending at a record $94.41, with 87% planning to celebrate the Fourth of July.
NRF's 2026 Super Bowl survey projected total spending on food, drinks, apparel, decorations, and other purchases at a record $20.2 billion, or $94.77 per person. A record 213.1 million US adults said they planned to watch, including 121.1 million planning to host or attend a party and another 18.2 million planning to watch at a bar or restaurant.
NRF's 2026 graduation survey projected total spending at a record $7.2 billion, with 39% of respondents planning to buy a gift for a high school or college graduate, and cash remains the top gift.
NRF's 2026 Halloween survey, fielded September 1-9 among 7,889 consumers, put total spending at a record $13.5 billion, up from $13.1 billion in 2025 and $11.6 billion in 2024. Seventy-four percent of consumers said they planned to celebrate, and average per-person planned spending reached a record $115.14, up from $114.45 in 2025.
NRF's 2026 back-to-school survey projected K-12 spending at a record $43.3 billion, up from $39.4 billion in 2025, and college spending projected at a record $103.5 billion, the first projection above $100 billion for college shopping, up from $88.8 billion in 2025. The average K-12 family plans to spend $863.86 and the average college family $1,437.79, with the college average reaching a record. The K-12 average is above 2025’s $858.07, but the cited release does not call that average a record.
What do shoppers plan to buy, by category?
Within NRF's 2026 Mother's Day total, jewelry leads all gift categories at $7.5 billion, followed by special outings at $6.4 billion and electronics at $4.4 billion, the first time electronics spending was projected above $4 billion in the survey's history. Flowers are projected to bring in $3.2 billion. For a look at how the jewelry trade itself standardizes gift-giving on a different calendar, this site's chart of birthstones by month checks Jewelers of America, GIA, and the American Gem Society's current lists stone by stone.
Within NRF's 2026 Halloween total, costumes lead at $4.4 billion, including $1.5 billion for kids' costumes, with decorations at $4.3 billion and candy at $4.1 billion.
Within NRF's 2026 K-12 back-to-school total, families plan to spend an average of $293.11 on electronics ($14.7 billion total), $250.29 on clothing and accessories ($12.5 billion total), $174.01 on shoes ($8.7 billion total), and $146.45 on school supplies ($7.3 billion total).
Within NRF’s 2026 college projection, shoppers plan averages of $341.95 on electronics ($24.63 billion total), $194.00 on dorm or apartment furnishings ($14.0 billion total), $182.39 on clothing and accessories ($13.1 billion total), $153.91 on food ($11.1 billion total), and $133.34 on personal care ($9.6 billion total). Those are survey shopping budgets, not a verified amount spent on each individual student. This calendar’s anniversary gifts by year compares traditional materials with an endorsed jewelry chart. Those recommendations serve a different purpose from a survey of purchasing intentions; disagreement between gift lists does not explain the spending results.
How is 2026 different from 2025, according to PwC's newest survey?
PwC's Holiday Outlook 2026, published September 8, 2026, surveyed 4,093 US consumers between June 15 and June 26, 2026, and reached a different-sounding conclusion from NRF's per-holiday dollar records above. Across surveyed consumers, average expected holiday gift spending is $708 in 2026, a 2% dip from 2025, even as consumer confidence fell 18.5% year over year on the University of Michigan's index, from 60.7 in June 2025 to 49.5 in June 2026. Households with children expect to spend more ($875) than households without ($635).
The pullback isn't even across generations. PwC found millennials, who PwC expects to remain the season’s biggest spenders overall, an outcome its authors interpret in terms of peak earning years, cutting gift budgets 10% and travel budgets 37% year over year. Gen Z is pulling back on a similar pattern: gift spending down 9%, travel down 29%, and the page’s accompanying graphic displays a 23% decline in total Gen Z spending. That graphic does not explicitly date the figure in the main 2026 narrative, so it should not be treated as an independently verified 2026 total change. Baby boomers are moving the other direction, with more discretionary income as expenses like mortgages and dependent costs recede.
Twenty-nine percent of consumers told PwC they plan to use AI somewhere in their 2026 holiday shopping, up from 22% in 2025, mostly to research products (three-quarters of AI users) and compare prices (55%). Sixty-four percent of all consumers say they're prioritizing screen-free, nostalgic gifts this year (board games, books, art supplies), rising to 78% among Gen Z, who are also more likely to say a shared meal (63%) matters more to them than a physical present. Physical stores remain the top channel regardless: 52% of consumers plan to visit a store in person to decide what to give, ahead of search engines (42%), social media (29%), and AI tools (14%), and 60% plan to actually buy in-store at checkout.
Travel intentions are holding closer to steady: 40% of PwC's respondents plan to travel over the 2026 winter holidays, against 44% in 2025, with 17% still undecided. The budget behind that travel dropped sharply, though, from $553 per person in 2025 to $419 in 2026, a 24% decline.
Which generation spends the most on holidays?
PwC's survey, above, finds millennials remaining the single biggest generational spender across the 2026 holiday season overall, even as they cut their own budgets the most. LendingTree's separate research on individual occasions points the same way: among potential Thanksgiving hosts surveyed in 2025, millennials planned to spend more ($594) than any other generation the survey named, trailing only six-figure earners as an income bracket ($633). This calendar's page on Galentine's Day covers a different corner of the same February gift-giving calendar Valentine's Day sits in, minus the romantic framing.
Are Americans going into debt for the holidays?
LendingTree's December 2025 survey of more than 2,000 US consumers found 37% of respondents had taken on holiday debt by the December survey, averaging $1,223, up from $1,181 in 2024 and the highest since 2022. Parents with children under 18 were hit hardest: 48% borrowed, averaging $1,324. Six-figure earners weren't exempt either: 47% borrowed, averaging $1,505, the highest average of any demographic group LendingTree tracked, ahead of millennials and Gen Zers, who each borrowed at 44% and averaged $1,294 and $1,295 respectively.
Nearly half of gift-givers, 46%, told LendingTree their single most expensive present cost $250 or more. Separately, LendingTree's tariff analysis found that if the tariffs in place at the study’s 2025 reference date had applied retroactively to the 2024 winter holidays, consumers and retailers together would have absorbed an extra $40.6 billion in costs, or about $132 per shopper.
What does hosting Thanksgiving actually cost?
LendingTree's November 2025 survey found 59% of Americans might host Thanksgiving that year, and those potential hosts planned to spend an average of $487 on food, drinks, and decor, up 13% from $431 in 2024. Six-figure-earning hosts planned to spend the most, at $633, followed by millennial hosts ($594) and hosts with children under 18 ($590). Sixty percent of Thanksgiving celebrators said inflation would affect their budget or plans, and 42% of potential hosts planned to put at least some of the cost on a credit card.
How to cite this page
Cite this page as: DayAlmanac, “Holiday Spending Statistics 2026, All Sourced,” DayAlmanac, published September 13, 2026, https://dayalmanac.com/holiday-spending-statistics/.
Every figure above is credited to the research organization that produced it, NRF, PwC, or LendingTree, both inline and in the sources list below; this page compiles their published numbers rather than generating new research. Planned budgets, forecasts and reported borrowing are different measures; the amounts are nominal dollars, not inflation-adjusted comparisons. The appropriate reverification points are new releases from those organizations, most notably NRF's Halloween and winter-holiday releases each fall and its Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, and Father's Day releases through the following spring.