What Number Surprised You? (Ep2: Holiday Polling: Is Die Hard a Holiday Movie? And Other Festive Insights)

What Number Surprised You? (Ep2: Holiday Polling: Is Die Hard a Holiday Movie? (And Other Festive Insights)

Welcome to What Number Surprised You?, a show about polling and opinion research hosted by MQO Research.



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We have a fun and festive one for you today as we head into the holiday. We ran a lighthearted poll among 550 Canadians around holiday preferences and practices, including some contentious ones like when and for how long it’s okay to have holiday decorations up, and whether Die Hard and Gremlins are holiday movies. This episode features MQO’s Kasey Connely and Richard Foot, joining host Brenden Sommerhalder. We had fun with this one and we hope you do too.

Check out some of our favourite holiday poll results!

PART 1:

PART 2:

Methodology:

N=550 Canadians, surveyed online (Dec 6 – 9, 2024).

Episode 2 Transcript

[Brenden 00:03] Hello again. Welcome back for Episode 2 of What Number Surprised You, a show about polling and opinion research. I’m Brenden Sommerhalder with MQO Research. We have a fun and festive one for you today as we head into the holiday. We ran a light-hearted poll among 550 Canadians around holiday preferences and practices, including some contentious ones like when and for how long it’s okay to keep up holiday decorations, and whether Die Hard and Gremlins are holiday movies. In this episode, I’m joined by my colleagues Kasey Connely and Richard Foot. We had fun with this one, and I hope you do too. Happy holidays, and see you in 2025. Well, welcome here, Kasey and Richard. Why not do just a little round the horn and say who we are.

[Kasey 01:04]
Me? I’m Kasey Connely, Senior Research Director at MQO. Hello. Hi. Do I say anything else?
[Brenden 01:13]
I mean, that’ll do.
[Richard 01:15]
Hi, Brenden and Kasey, I’m Richard Foot. I’m a Research Director at MQO.
[Brenden 01:19]
I’m Brenden Sommerhalder, a Vice President at MQO. So, I mean, we could have done any number of things as episode number two. We had grand ideas of trying to get a bunch of different voices and asking a bunch of questions from people across different regional offices, but it is mid-December and the holidays are before us. So we have this pretty cool opportunity to do a little podcast about a fun little holiday poll that we ran. And this was a brainchild of Kasey, actually. How did this come about? Tell us the story.
[Kasey 01:50]
About how I thought about doing this? Well, first we have to see if I’ll remember it all because my mom brain is very empty. I think it was after the polling that we had done for the Nova Scotia provincial election and we’d had sort of some of those positive feedback about the accuracy level. And I thought it would just be kind of fun to play on that sort of success. And as we’re getting closer to the holidays, maybe, you know, do some polling related to that. So I think I called you while you were driving with your partner and I was like, I have an idea. And then I pitched it to you and you said, yes, because you’re fun, and then we did it.
[Brenden 02:26]
Let the record show.
[Richard 02:29]
When your boss is fun, that’s not bad, right?
[Kasey 02:31]
That’s true.
[Brenden 02:33]
Richard, when did you hear about this little initiative for the first time.
[Richard 02:36]
The podcast itself? I guess I heard about the podcast after you released our first one, Brenden. I almost fell off my chair listening to it because you said in a quasi-live recording that you were on your way to vote, but you were also going to pick up a case of beer from the liquor store and then go home to watch the election returns. And I thought, well, if he’s gonna mention that in a podcast for a commercial company, then I’m definitely working for the right place.
[Brenden 03:03]
Yeah, that was a pretty fun little thing to do. Do we like the name? Do we think the name, you know, what number surprised you? That, those were, that came from just some ideas, Richard. You and I were batting back and forth, I think in the summertime. So we started as a work in progress. Are you still liking it?
[Richard 03:21]
I like the name. I mean we are gonna be a podcast about results from from surveys and public opinion polling. So Yeah, let’s talk about numbers. That’s I think it sums it up quite well.
[Brenden 03:32]
Kasey. Okay.
[Kasey 03:34]
I think it’s good I especially like like some of the staff responded to it in a positive way. Like I’m always a little hesitant to Like have an opinion about a name because I think names are very very sort of subjective and sometimes they could just Build their own meaning even if you don’t actually like like it when you first hear it, which I’m not saying I didn’t like it I’m just saying, I tend to reserve judgment on the name of something. But some of our staff had reached out and sort of said that they specifically liked the name. And so that was kind of a good thing, made me excited.
[Brenden 04:02]
It reminds me how hard it is to do name testing for brands.
[Kasey 04:06]
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, unless there’s like a major red flag, you can probably make a name work, I think.
[Brenden 04:12]
A rose by another name. I think that was Joe Rogan who coined that, I believe. Yeah, real man of our time.
[Richard 04:21]
We have a lot to aspire to.
[Brenden 04:24]
If only. Well, so this poll was a poll among Canadians. We reached 550 folks across the country. This was done online. And we really wanted it to just be a really fun thing. You know, people take surveys, and there’s sometimes some pretty heavy-hitting issues. But this time around, we made them some pretty soft-hitting issues. all around the holidays. Let’s start with Kasey. In true kind of fashion for the namesake of this particular podcast, is there a number that surprised you?
[Kasey 05:01]
Well, there was a few numbers that surprised me, but when we were reviewing these at a top-line level, there was a couple that had stuck out to me, and one of them I’m gonna talk about is probably a little controversial, especially because I’m sitting with two people who would probably fall maybe into this bucket, But when we were asking folks who the most challenging person was to buy gifts for, everyone, or the highest proportion of people said their significant other. But when you look a little bit deeper at that, those who identified as male tended to have sort of a higher rating. There was 37% of male respondents said it was their significant other who was the hardest shot for, versus 22% of female respondents.
[Brenden 05:44]
Was it still first place among females, or did they have somebody else who was hard for them to buy for.
[Kasey 05:49]
No, it’s still first place among both of them. The gap to the next place is relatively large, like the next one would be like a parent for both groups. But I still think it’s kind of interesting that, in general, it was a little bit harder, it seems, among that group.
[Brenden 06:03]
That’s a real deal gender difference, 37 versus 22. Yeah. That’s a real one.
[Kasey 06:07]
It was also one of those numbers that sometimes what’s fun about polls is that you kind of get to test what conventional wisdom is versus what the reality is. And this is one of those numbers where you might have a gut feeling that that’s the case, but you would never necessarily want to believe it. And then you see the number to support it, and it kind of makes it a little bit hilarious.
[Brenden 06:29]
That was hilarious.
[Kasey 06:29]
Richard. How do you guys feel about the number? Do you agree with it? Do you think it’s harder for you to shop for your partner than them to shop for you.
[Brenden 06:36]
I would say the stakes are just so much higher. I mean, my lovely partner, she’s amazing all year round, and I have approximately one time per year to shine. So if I got that wrong, I’m kind of in the doghouse for a whole entire year. So I think the stakes being higher, for me personally, makes it more challenging. Richard, help me out.
[Richard 06:56]
Well, I’m shocked. I’m shocked that the Significant Other across both genders was the top of the category as the most difficult to buy for. Because I thought that the answer to this problem was simply, you don’t really worry about what your Significant Other wants. You worry about what you want, and you buy something that you like, and then you make your Significant Other think they’re getting a nice gift. Because you get to share it all year long, right? It’s in your home. So it’s really, you’re buying for yourself. I don’t even know why this is an issue, frankly.
[Brenden 07:21]
I wonder if that’s a layer on top of it. Maybe they just see right through us.
[Richard 07:26]
I’m going to push back on the whole gender thing that you raised, though, Kasey, because I’ll also note that the survey shows that people consider their mothers more difficult to buy for than their fathers by a few points. 8% say their fathers are the most difficult to buy for. 12% say their mothers are the most difficult to buy for. why is that? Why are moms harder to buy for than dads?
[Kasey 07:48]
Well, I’m not sure. That does surprise me though because my dad is definitely way harder to buy for than my mom.
[Brenden 07:56]
Richard, was there a number that surprised you particularly?
[Richard 07:59]
I am going to go with the question that asks, will you give gifts to friends or family during the holidays this year? Now, 84% said yes. That’s not the number that surprised me. The number that surprised me is the next number down. 11% said maybe. What is with those folks? They don’t know what their plans are. I mean, this poll wasn’t that long ago. We’re in the Christmas season. We’ve been inundated with Black Friday weeks and on and on shopping pressure for ever since the end of Halloween. And if you couple that with the 5% that said, no, we’ve got 16% of Canadians either aren’t buying Christmas gifts or don’t even know if they’re buying Christmas gifts this year. I didn’t know we were such an, well, I’ll say a materialistic country. I thought Christmas was all about buying gifts and spending money. So what are the reasons for this? And notably, it’s even higher in Quebec. 22% of Quebecers don’t know or aren’t sure if they’re buying Christmas gifts this year. What is that saying about us? Is it an affordability issue? Is it a lack of planning? Are Canadians just really bad at thinking about Christmas? Maybe people are waiting to see if they receive a gift. We’re like Canadians are so polite that we don’t want to make it awkward by giving a gift to somebody if they’re not going to have a gift for us. So we all just wait to see who’s going to go first. I don’t know what behind that.
[Brenden 09:19]
I love the idea that we could possibly be too polite to give a gift. It’s like I don’t want to inadvertently put somebody else in the position of not having given a gift if they got one in the first place. That’s like nine dimensional politeness chest that could only exist in Canada. And I.
[Richard 09:36]
Just want both of you to know, since we’re on that subject, I do not have gifts for you. So there you go.
[Brenden 09:41]
Thank goodness.
[Richard 09:41]
Get that out there and clear the air.
[Brenden 09:43]
Yeah, it’s like prisoner’s dilemma of gift giving.
[Richard 09:46]
Exactly.
[Brenden 09:48]
I’m going to give my surprise number. And this is more like a surprise and delight. So Kasey, when I got the survey draft from you and I saw the question there, which emoji most represents how you’re feeling about the holidays? and we had happiness and excitement and ready to party, but we also had sort of sad and frustrated and I think nervous and some of those more negatively valenced questions. I saw that question and I was honestly a little bit worried about what we were gonna find there. I sort of just felt like maybe there’s more nervousness, anxiety, or some of those negative feelings that might come to mind to people, but that just wasn’t the case. Really overwhelmingly, it was otherwise. 46% by the largest plurality of folks chose happy, straight up. What emoji best describes your feeling about the holidays? 46% happy. The next 26% excited. The next 9% neutral. You get to fourth on the list and it’s 8% are feeling overwhelmed, followed closely by 7% ready to party. So honestly, that was a pretty happy result to me. What did you guys, were you expecting that pattern of results to that question.
[Kasey 11:08]
No, I also was expecting a little bit more like, especially overwhelm. I thought that would be a little bit higher just given all the kind of conversation right now around affordability and that kind of stuff. I definitely thought we’d see a little bit more of that, but it was a really positive news story. I mean, it’s basically 80% of folks who are, you know, feeling positive about the upcoming holidays, which is really great. So yeah, it was nice to see. And I think shout out too, to one of our other directors, Alison, who actually recommended adding this question when she sent it over as an addition. I was like, oh my gosh, that’s brilliant. It’s gonna be so fun to see how people kind of resonate with this question, which they did, obviously, so.
[Richard 11:48]
Yeah, I was really surprised that there were more than 8% saying they were overwhelmed, because we hear a lot in the media about how overwhelming life is generally, especially around Christmas time and the pressures of Christmas. And clearly, you know, Canadians aren’t feeling that way. Also, a lot of people, we hear that there are, you know, significant segments of society that actually feel sad around this time of year. They get the Christmas blues and we’ve only got what? Like 2% sad, 2% anxious.
[Brenden 12:15]
This one was a single select question. So we asked people which one best represents your feelings. I think there might be a bit of people are multidimensional. You can kind of have more than one thing going on at a time. I bet you folks who are excited and happy probably have 2% to 6% anxious and overwhelmed in there. So this might be more, if you look at this pattern of results, maybe you almost take your sort of prototypical Canadian and this is the mix that they’re feeling around the holidays is a lot of happiness, a lot of excitement, but there might be an undertone of some of those nagging other feelings too. So that’s a-.
[Richard 12:55]
I think that’s probably true.
[Brenden 12:56]
Could be. Who is most ready to party, Kasey.
[Kasey 12:59]
Those most ready to party were from Quebec.
[Brenden 13:02]
From Quebec.
[Kasey 13:03]
13% versus the overall 7%.
[Brenden 13:06]
So like a little less sure about giving gifts, but certainly more sure about being ready to party. It’s true.
[Richard 13:14]
I know where I want to spend Christmas next year.
[Brenden 13:17]
Hold your gift giving, don’t worry. Was there a segment of people that either of you found, I don’t know, interesting or like they stood out across some of these results.
[Richard 13:29]
Well, I’m interested in one segment of people for one of the questions, which is we asked, what is your favorite holiday tradition? And 30% overall said holiday meals. 16% said giving gifts. But down the list, attending religious or spiritual services, which is what Christmas originally is all meant to be about, overall, only 4% said that was their favorite holiday tradition, which I think is very revealing. I mean, we all know Christmas has become a secular holiday, but that kind of puts a real exclamation point on that. And it’s much lower than I thought it would be in terms of the percentage. But what’s even more interesting is Gen. Z, 18 to 27-year-olds, 0% said attending a religious service. And again, not super surprising for that generation. But I think the fact that it’s at zero really drives home the point for me that we’ve become really a secular society. And many of the pillars of our culture and our institutions that were built on religious or Christian ideas, it’s really, really either gone or rapidly dying, especially with the upcoming generation.
[Brenden 14:44]
This may be a little bit kind of on the methodology related to what you were just talking about, Richard. So we did this poll among Canadians who do something related to some kind of stuff around the holiday, not necessarily Christmas. Over 95% of Canadians were screened in to this survey because they do some kind of activities around the holidays. So, and even around wording that question, I remembered changing it a little bit from do you celebrate any of the following holidays, just kind of straight up, so Christmas, Hanukkah, and a list of other ones, to something more along the lines of do you participate in activities around these things? Because if I were to think about my own life, I participated in Christmas-related stuff. We do gifts. I do Christmas trees. Would I say that I celebrate Christmas? I don’t know that I would say yes specifically to that. I do Christmas stuff. I don’t know if I celebrate Christmas. So I thought that framing it that way would be more in line with how people probably do interact with these holidays. And I think what you’re talking about, Richard, there about, you know, religious ceremonies and participating in those types of things being very low down the list, or even non existent, more or less for some of the segments, kind of speaks to that.
[Kasey 16:08]
The only caution, I guess, with that interpretation is like, the question was what is your favorite holiday tradition? So I think I don’t I wouldn’t want to like extrapolate too much into that indicating participation in religious events because it’s more like how much do you enjoy that and you know I feel like even folks who are quite religious might say they don’t necessarily like enjoy every service they go.
[Richard 16:29]
To. No I agree.
[Kasey 16:30]
Their most favorite component so I do think there’s probably like a little bit of both. Sure there.
[Brenden 16:34]
Might be more prevalence than what we’re seeing and yeah.
[Richard 16:37]
Does that mean that all the people sitting in church on Christmas Eve would rather be at home and waiting to go watch a holiday movie, which 13% say is their favorite activity, or?
[Brenden 16:48]
I would say there’s a duty boundedness to some of that going on for sure.
[Kasey 16:54]
I will say though, as a side note, I don’t know if either of you noticed, but when we were at lunch, there was like a table near us who was, it looked like there must’ve been a work party or something like that, and I thought it was kind of like kismet-like. The people that were sitting near us, they were talking about their holiday traditions. They were talking about going to brunch and they were all kind of sharing what they were gonna do. So I thought it was quite hilarious that we were at that moment sort of sitting reviewing these results while people were actually talking.
[Brenden 17:17]
About the same thing. I love that. On that question of which holidays do you participate in? We had an other write-in and I saw a few times a response that I was not familiar with. Kasey, you and I talked about this earlier. So I’m gonna put it to Richard again. Have you heard of, or do you know what is old Christmas day?
[Richard 17:42]
I have never heard of that.
[Brenden 17:44]
Kasey.
[Kasey 17:45]
My mom, who is a Newfoundlander, she always leaves the Christmas decorations up until old Christmas day. And I think it’s like the 6th of January or something, but you know those like 12 days of Christmas or whatever, that’s all connected to like what old Christmas day is. I think it like starts on Christmas Eve and then it like ends 12 days after that or something to that effect. I don’t know all the details. I just know that’s when my mom’s Christmas decorations come down.
[Brenden 18:10]
It’s another one of those beloved Newfoundland things. So of course, MQO spans all of Atlantic Canada and many of our colleagues are Newfoundlanders. And so I was delighted to see this old Christmas day in the open ends, look it up and learn that, yeah, it’s a Newfoundland thing. And it’s January 6th. How do you like that? Love it.
[Richard 18:30]
No, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of that. It’s interesting.
[Kasey 18:32]
Yeah.
[Brenden 18:33]
So, this next set of questions, maybe this will be one that settles some bets across the land, I wonder, and these are the ones, Richard, again, I’ve kept secret from you because I really want to see what you think about these things. And it’s about movies and whether they are holiday movies. First of all, I want to ask you, Richard, have you seen each of the following, yes or no? The Nightmare Before Christmas. Edward Scissorhands. Nope. Gremlins. Yes. Die Hard. Yes. Mean Girls.
[Richard 19:09]
Nope. Okay.
[Brenden 19:10]
So let’s go with the two that you have seen and the question is do you consider these movies to be holiday movies and now we’re gonna say among the people who have an opinion on that so they’ve seen it and they have an opinion what What percentage of Canadians considers Gremlins to be a holiday movie do you think?
[Richard 19:34]
So I’m not allowed to look at my cheat sheet?
[Brenden 19:36]
You don’t even have it. I don’t even have it. I’m holding the results. I kept those embargoed from you. So.
[Richard 19:41]
Are you asking me about both those movies?
[Brenden 19:43]
I’m going to go with Gremlins first. I’m going to go with Die Hard because we have a little bit more data to go on with that which we’ll give some context on.
[Richard 19:49]
I saw Gremlins a long time ago with one of my kids when they were little and I recall it being a gift. He received some kind of like a creature as a Christmas gift so I guess that qualifies it as a Christmas movie but everything else about it I would not associate with it being a Christmas movie. I’m gonna say kind of like 50-50 on gremlins.
[Brenden 20:11]
Okay 50-50 gremlins and now you have a teeny weeny bit of other data on Die Hard. Tell us what that was and then so.
[Richard 20:20]
You did an informal poll with our Halifax office. I can’t remember how many people responded to it and you were asking is Die Hard a Christmas movie and I think it was overwhelmingly yes. I think there was one person who responded saying no and then you had a whole pile of kind of like cheeky feedback people saying your question was flawed and there were a bunch of other movies that should be.
[Brenden 20:39]
Considered or whatever. And I should really get out of that question, asking business.
[Richard 20:46]
Highly unscientific poll of your work colleagues and the consensus was yes.
[Brenden 20:50]
It was and what would you say what percentage of Canadians think that Die heart is the holiday movie.
[Richard 20:54]
My guess, what would my guess be? I would say most would not because it’s just not doesn’t have the right tone. On the other hand there’s it’s got a bit of a cult following so let me say I’m 30 to 40 percent of Canadians will say yes.
[Brenden 21:08]
Well I mean you are right it’s 36 percent of.
[Richard 21:13]
Canadians. I promise I didn’t cheat.
[Brenden 21:14]
I couldn’t have cheated on that. You couldn’t have, no no yeah so that you you completely nailed it yeah 36% of Canadians would have considered Die Hard to be a holiday movie, 33% so this is even lower say Gremlins, the highest so The Nightmare Before Christmas strong majority almost 8 in 10 79% of Canadians think The Nightmare Before Christmas is a holiday movie but then it kind of is down from there Edward Scissorhands only 19% and Mean girls only 11%. Kasey, what do you think?
[Kasey 21:50]
I mean, I think there’s some that isn’t as surprising like Mean Girls and Edward Scissorhands. But yeah, for Die Hard I mean, and Gremlins, those are both movies that I watch every Christmas so I thought they’d be a little higher. It feels like there’s some like maybe pop culture kind of trends or influences depending on which province you live in Because Quebec was most likely to say that Gremlins is a holiday movie by 9%.
[Richard 22:20]
Interesting.
[Kasey 22:21]
So yeah.
[Brenden 22:22]
And there’s a little bit of age stuff going on here to a Gen. Z 41% think Die Hard is a holiday movie nearly half 49% think Gremlins is So there’s something interesting there Here’s another one. This one might Start or settle some arguments across the land Richard when is it too early to put up your holiday?
[Richard 22:50]
Decorations you’re gonna ask do you want me to read the results for a while Brenden? Are you asking my opinion?
[Brenden 22:54]
I’m gonna let you take that. However, you’d like to okay.
[Richard 22:57]
Well, I I think it’s outrageous that what we seem to have now is not a Christmas season and not a Halloween season And not a season from Remembrance Day, but we seem to have this like endless Beginning with Halloween, we have this endless sugary festival that starts in October sometime and ends at New Year or after New Year. And I don’t know what’s going on with the world. People are I mean, I’m literally putting away my Halloween decorations. And there’s Santa Claus is in the shop in the grocery store. And people are my neighbors are putting up lights. And I’m like, I’m embarrassed. You know, like, what? How did this happen? Are we so deprived of light at this this time of year that we need to put up Sparkle wherever we get the chance and for as long as we can.
[Kasey 23:40]
Richard, I gotta ask you, which emoji best describes how you feel about Christmas?
[Richard 23:45]
I don’t think they’ve made an emoji as grumpy enough as they…
[Brenden 23:49]
Yeah.
[Richard 23:51]
Yeah, I’ll definitely be the Grinch on this one. I think Canadians are… I don’t remember people putting up Christmas lights and Christmas trees, like, right after Halloween. I mean, retailing is one thing, but in your homes and in your neighborhoods, like, what’s up with that? But anyway, I’m noticing it’s definitely getting earlier and earlier, and I’m getting grumpier and grumpier.
[Kasey 24:11]
Yeah. Well, it’s actually kind of funny that you mentioned that it seems like it feels like it’s been changing over time. Because I think some of the data sort of suggests that the younger generations tend to want to decorate a bit earlier than some of the older generations. So maybe there is a bit of a shift. And that they kind of tend to want to keep things up longer compared to older generations.
[Richard 24:34]
Interesting, yeah. And I definitely feel like, I mean, I think the pressure from my own kids who are young adults to get the house decorated and to put up lights is intense. So I think you’re probably right about that.
[Brenden 24:48]
I think you’re in good company. Kasey, what are the stats there? What are people saying when it comes to when is the earliest that you should put up holiday decorations.
[Kasey 24:56]
So 16% of respondents said after Halloween is the earliest to put it up.
[Brenden 25:04]
So those are the people that are like offending you Richard. Absolutely.
[Richard 25:07]
Yeah, I don’t even know those people I know them as my neighbors, but that’s it.
[Kasey 25:11]
Then it’s uh 27 percent after Remembrance Day and then 50 percent uh, December 1st.
[Brenden 25:21]
Being the earliest so half of uh Canadians think that as early as you should go is December 1.
[Kasey 25:29]
Yeah But so for after Halloween, even though it’s 16% of the of overall, it’s 24% of Gen. Z and millennials, who said.
[Richard 25:40]
So I guess I’m an old, I’m an old, I’m an old guy. That’s gotta explain it. Yeah.
[Brenden 25:45]
Yeah. So a whole quarter of the young guns think that, you know, get it up right after Halloween. Yeah. Yeah. How about take any down? You know, what’s? Well, we got to go back to Richard because that’s too much fun uh you know what is what is it too late what is the latest you think uh you know i’m with.
[Richard 26:05]
I’m with the whole 12 days of christmas thing i mean i okay so i i thought the tradition was you put your christmas tree up on christmas eve now i’m not that much of a grinch i i can give people a little bit of leeway to get organized and get their tree up a few days before christmas but i definitely think you should take it down after 12 days.
[Brenden 26:24]
And 12 days after christmas.
[Richard 26:26]
That’s right because isn’t that what it’s isn’t that tradition you leave your tree up for 12 days and then you that’s the 12 days of christmas yeah um i do know people who leave their trees up all winter i guess those who have artificial trees it’s becoming easier to do that do.
[Kasey 26:41]
You mean like until like march?
[Richard 26:42]
Literally will leave their tree up all winter in their in their front window uh i don’t know end of february maybe uh march break um and but we have a bit of a problem with outdoor decorations because I will admit to leaving my outdoor decorations up until the spring thaw simply because it’s too cold to go out there and they’re literally frozen to the outside of my house.
[Brenden 27:05]
It’s like a health and safety issue.
[Richard 27:06]
Yeah you have to hack them out of the ice and the snow and it’s just easier to wait till the spring.
[Brenden 27:11]
So you’re gonna gut Kasey like what what you know before having seen the results when like when is it just time to get those things down?
[Kasey 27:17]
Um, I feel like I would expect I would have expected most people to say sometime early in January But.
[Brenden 27:24]
And what did they say?
[Kasey 27:25]
They said so, uh, nine percent said before january 1st. So before the new year 16 percent said by january 2nd 55 said sometime in january and then seven percent said February and five percent said as long as it’s before the spring.
[Brenden 27:44]
There you go So it sounds like pretty strong consensus that you get January. February is getting a little long in the tooth. And unless it’s a safety hazard, really try to get it out well before the spring.
[Richard 27:58]
Well, those 55% who say sometime in January, good luck to them. If we’re having a mild winter, OK, yeah. But if we’re having a regular winter, good luck to them. They’re going to freeze their fingers off.
[Brenden 28:10]
Was there anything else in these results that were sort of like really popped out to either you guys.
[Richard 28:15]
What is your favorite holiday movie? Home Alone at the top of the list with 23%. The Grinch had 9%. At the very bottom of the list, Love Actually had 1%. That’s pretty bad for a movie that I thought was a pretty popular holiday movie since whenever it came out. And was it the 80s or early 90s? I can’t remember. And it has to be because people just can’t stomach the idea of Hugh Grant dancing in 10 Downing Street, right? It’s just too traumatizing to watch that. So therefore it’s at the bottom of the list.
[Kasey 28:50]
Gen. Z had like some interesting, unique viewpoint of the holidays. And we talked about some of that already with kind of wanting to put things up earlier and maybe being a little slower to take it down. But they also were, like, rated themselves more excited than other generations, they were most likely to rate themselves as totally nice on a scale of naughty to nice. So 25% of the total sample said that they would rate themselves as, you know, 100% nice, whereas 35% of Gen. Z said that they would do the same. Quebec was also high on that one. 32%. Yeah, so it just kind of seems like there’s, you know, a little bit of a certain kind of vibe, I guess, to the holidays for that group. So that was kind of interesting to see for sure. They’re most likely to give gifts, 95% versus the 84% of everyone else, which is pretty high. They were the least likely to find it hard to shop for their significant other. So.
[Richard 29:52]
So Gen. Z loves Christmas.
[Kasey 29:54]
Apparently.
[Richard 29:54]
Wow, it’s obviously in good hands. Yeah.
[Brenden 29:56]
It’s in good hands. Yeah, that hardest to buy for question, one One little data point I found kind of interesting, kind of nice, was that hardest to buy for significant other was, far and away, the hardest for the oldest of our respondents.
[Kasey 30:17]
Oh, yeah, that’s right, I saw that.
[Brenden 30:19]
So where 29% of all Canadians said that their significant other is the hardest to buy for, 43% of those 70 plus said their significant other is the hardest buyer. We’re like, what do you get for somebody who has it all? You’ve been giving gifts for 30, 40, 50 Christmases in a row. Fair enough. Something to be grateful for is, at least for the three of us, is not being there quite yet.
[Richard 30:50]
Boy, that’s gonna make my Christmases even more fun as the years go by, isn’t it?
[Brenden 30:56]
But also with that oldest group, and this is just a beautiful, beautiful thing. So what emoji best describes your feelings about the holidays? 46% of Canadians said happy. 58% of 70 plus said happy, which is the largest of any group. So the gift buying might be harder, but the happiness reigns supreme among them. There you go.
[Richard 31:23]
Good for them.
[Brenden 31:24]
Well, every time you ask a question, you really get 1,000 data points because you can look at it a bunch of different ways. And of course, we being the data research geeks that we are, take a look at our website, take a look at our socials. We’re gonna be giving more snippets between now and the holidays, and maybe a little sneak peek too. We asked people, will you make a New Year’s resolution this year? Among the 32% who are going to be making a New Year’s resolution, we ask them, what’s the resolution going to be? So make sure you check in. Anything else, friends, before we wrap up on this last week before the holidays.
[Richard 32:07]
Oh, well, this was fun. We delve into a lot of numbers in our daily work lives. And it was fun looking at some Christmassy, some up-to-date Christmassy data.
[Kasey 32:20]
Now we should figure out what we’re going to do next.
[Brenden 32:22]
We should figure out what we’re going to do next. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thanks for listening to What Number Surprised You by MQO Research. I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. Get in touch, if you’d like, by e-mail at podcast at mqoresearch.com. Search us up on socials or visit our website for more fun holiday stats from this poll. And of course, please subscribe if you haven’t already and share our show with anyone you think it would bring a smile to. See you in the new year. ♪♪ ♪♪.
[Kasey 33:25]
They do decorate a bit earlier, it’s like.
[Richard 33:30]
You guys know I just like Christmas intensely, right?
[Brenden 33:32]
I’m also not a fan of Christmas. I also don’t love it very much. That’s really funny. That’s where we’re going to skew our fun around.
[Kasey 33:38]
We are all the Grinches. Three Grinches review holiday spirit. That’s.
[Brenden 33:43]
Right. Yeah. Honestly, running a pole about Christmas is about the only way to salvage it for me.