‘Happy Holidays’ gaining popularity while ‘Merry Christmas’ declines: poll

The number of Canadians who say "Happy Holidays" instead of the more traditional "Merry Christmas" is increasing.

Along with Happy Holidays gaining more traction, the number of people who say Merry Christmas has declined.

According the results of a Research Co. poll released today, Dec. 20, since 2018 the proportion of people that prefer to say Merry Christmas has fallen by 10 percentage points, and the number of Canadians that instead say Happy Holidays has increased by seven percentage points.

However, saying Merry Christmas is still more popular than saying Happy Holidays.

The survey found almost two-thirds of Canadians still say Merry Christmas while 21 per cent say Happy Holidays.

There's also a correlation between which greeting a person uses and how they vote.

"Only 14 per cent of Canadians who voted for the Conservative Party in 2021 prefer to say Happy Holidays," Research Co. president Mario Canseco said in a news release. "The proportions are higher among Canadians who supported the New Democratic Party (22 per cent) or the Liberal Party (24 per cent)."

Regardless of which greeting they use almost a third of Canadian think Christmas will be "more stressful than fun," while 52 per cent think the holiday season will be "more fun than stressful."

The poll found that four separate groups were more likely to find Christmas a stressful time.

Atlantic Canadians topped that list with 40 per cent predicting a stressful Christmas followed by NDP voters (35 per cent), Canadians aged 35 to 54 (33 per cent), and women (31 per cent).

When it came to food, 84 per cent of Canadians said they enjoyed turkey, 64 per cent cranberry sauce and 60 per cent said they liked Brussel sprouts.


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Ben Bulmer

After a decade of globetrotting, U.K. native Ben Bulmer ended up settling in Canada in 2009. Calling Vancouver home he headed back to school and studied journalism at Langara College. From there he headed to Ottawa before winding up in a small anglophone village in Quebec, where he worked for three years at a feisty English language newspaper. Ben is always on the hunt for a good story, an interesting tale and to dig up what really matters to the community.