In every issue of Harper’s Magazine there appears a page of interesting statistics. Here is a collection of mentions of Christmas in that Index over the years.
1987 Average amount of time a child spends in Santa Claus’s lap at Macy’s (in seconds): 37
Number of U.S. cities and towns named Santa Claus: 3
Number named Moscow: 32
1988 Percentage of child psychologists who advise parents of pre-school children to “confirm Santa’s existence”: 40
1991 Estimated number of cookies tleft out for Santa Claus this Christmas Eve: 84,000,000
1992 Number of letters that must be moved to change “Santa” into “Satan”: 1
Price paid at auction in October for a 1942 Christmas card signed by Adolf Hitler: $3,025
1993 Age at which a child’s belief in Santa Claus peaks: 4
Chances that a Jewish-American child believes in Santa Claus: 1 in 4
Pages of forms an applicant must fill out to be as an elf at Macy’s: 10
1994 Chances that a Santa Claus appearing in a mall this month has a college degree: 2 in 3
1996 Estimated number of Americans hospitalized last year for injuries involving the ingestion of Christmas ornaments: 687
1997 Chance that an American adult can name all of Santa’s reindeer: 1 in 4
1997 Rank of milk among professional Santas’ favorite drinks with cookies, according to the American Dairy Association: 1
1998 Weeks required to complete the Santa course offered by Britain’s Weston College: 8
2000 Minutes required to take in “the true story of Christmas ” at Little Rock’s Living Nativity drive-through: 2
2001 Number of Montreal stores vandalized last year for mounting Christmas displays in November: 14
2002 Chances of getting a hotel room in Bethlehem on Christmas in 2000 and 2001, respectively: 0, 9 in 10
Chance that a Bethlehem hotel expects to be open this Christmas: 1 in 5
Rank of a burning Yule-log video loop among the top-rated 8-10 a.m. TV shows in New York City last Christmas: 1
2003 Estimated number of artificial Christmas trees displayed in U.S. homes each year for every real one: 2.6
2005 Miles per hour of two low-flying Danish fighter jets in February when they startled a reindeer named Rudolph to death: 450
Amount his owner, a professional Santa, was paid by the Air Force in September to buy a new Rudolph: $5,000
2006 Number of worldwide incidents last Christmas of “Santarchy,” which involves roving mobs of unruly Santas: 29
Number of fruitcakes that drunken Santas catapulted into the air at the event in Portland, Oregon: 6
2007 Percentage of shopping-mall and party Santas who believe that children “lie when they say they’ve been good”: 54
Percentage change since 1970 in the height of the National Christmas Tree: +63
Number of golf clubs a Phoenix tourism group is sending to troops overseas as part of its “Operation White Christmas”: 14,000
Number of Christmas trees FedExed last year to U.S. troops: 11,854
Number of seconds it takes a synthetic Christmas tree to burn: 32
2008 Percentage of U.S. Christmas trees purchased in 2001 and 2007, respectively, that were artificial: 21, 36