First in Freedom, Second in Christmas Spirit: NC Ranked 2nd Jolliest State in Nation

RALEIGH – Maybe it’s all the pride from all the homegrown Christmas trees that adorn living rooms from the White House to your house; maybe it’s the great dynamic between winter wonderlands in Appalachia  and unique community traditions like Old Christmas in the Outer Banks; or, maybe it’s because North Carolinians simply choose to BE merry in appreciation of the reason for the season, rather than merely seem so.

Whatever it is, North Carolina has more Christmas spirit than nearly every other state in the nation according to researched rankings published by Century Link. The only state that registered more Christmas spirit is our neighbor Tennessee.

So which ingredients are required to top the Nice List? Basically, the researches looked at how much residents are binging on Christmas music, movies, and wrapping paper, how many Christmas trees per capita and how charitable the people are.

“To determine which US states have the most Christmas spirit, GetCenturyLink’s data analysis team put their heads together to compare data in two main categories: online activity and area culture. 

We analyzed each category using ten metrics listed below. We finalized our Christmas spirit ranking by calculating the weighted average for each state across all metrics. 

Online Activity

• • Google searches for Christmas movies and gingerbread houses (29%)
  • Google shopping trends for wrapping paper, Christmas cards, Christmas ornaments, and “elf on a shelf” (28%)
  • Number of Christmas songs streamed (14.5%)
  • Number of tweets related to Christmas (7%)

Area Culture 

• • Number of Christmas tree farms per capita (7%)
  • Amount of charitable donations (14.5%) […]”

First in Freedom, Second in Christmas Spirit…See the rest of the rankings here.