Money may earn a commission when you click on the products and services below. Opinions are our own,
but compensation and in-depth research determine where and how they appear. Learn more about how we make money.

  1. Lifestyle
  2. Places to Travel

The 3 Things People Buy on Christmas Day

Published: Dec 24, 2014 3 min read

Christmas is supposed to be the day the buying frenzy ends. But consumerism never rests, not even for a single day. Especially not if you're spending money on these three things, which top the list of Christmas Day purchases.

1. Movie Tickets

OK, you've opened presents, you've schmoozed with cousin Ralph, you've had your fill of turkey—now what? I know, let's go see a movie! That impulse has made Christmas day openings a huge source of profits for Hollywood.

Major flicks like Annie and Angelina Jolie's Unbroken (not to mention some movie about North Korea) are opening Christmas Eve, and if history is any guide, they'll have a chance to make quite a bit of coin. Last year, total domestic box office gross for the week that included Christmas was almost $400,000. According to BoxOfficeMojo, the single-day record for Christmas earnings belongs to Robert Downey Jr.'s 2012 Sherlock Holmes remake, which took in $25.6 million.

2. Chinese Food

The stereotype of non-Christians eating Chinese food on Christmas appears to be based in truth, according to Slate. The site partnered with food delivery app GrubHub to find out how much interest in Chinese food increased on Christmas by measuring what percentage the cuisine made up out of all the service's orders and then looking at how much that percentage increased on Christmas.

The result? Chinese food experienced a relative increase in order percentage of 152% on Christmas (at least in the urban areas GrubHub servers). So there you have it: Christmas is definitely a big day for Chinese restaurants.

3. Booze

Going to a movie solves some of the stress of hanging out with the in-laws, but you can't spend all of Christmas in the theater. How to get through the rest of the holiday? According to a Yahoo's "Alcohol and America" survey, the answer is, well, a stiff drink. Respondents listed Christmas as one of their favorite drinking holidays, second only to New Year's Day. It's no accident that Budweiser launched a holiday marketing project to sell expensive, "vintage" crates of beer to millennials.