Last minute Christmas shopping never changes
Five charts to start your day
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This matters because it shows how predictable human behaviour really is, even when we swear this year will be different. Every December we plan ahead. Every December we end up here.
This chart shows Google searches for “last minute Christmas gifts” rising slowly through the month, then exploding right before Christmas Eve. The peak is almost perfectly aligned year after year, hitting its maximum on 24 December. The shape barely changes across more than a decade. Different people, different economy, same panic.
What is striking is not just the spike, but how compressed it is. Interest stays low for most of the month, then surges in the final three or four days. This is not about lack of information or access. Online shopping, same day delivery and gift cards have all made procrastination easier, not rarer. Convenience has not solved delay. It has enabled it.
There is also something structural here. Modern work patterns push discretionary time to the edges. Shopping becomes a task squeezed between deadlines, travel and family commitments. The result is a collective rush that repeats with clockwork precision, regardless of inflation, technology or good intentions.
Source: Brittany Rosenau
I feel this one in my bones. Every year I tell myself I’ll be organised, and every year December arrives like a wave that knocks the plan straight out of my hands. Work runs long, the days vanish, and suddenly I’m bargaining with the calendar like it’s a negotiator. The chart is funny because it’s true, and it’s mildly humiliating because it’s me.
Hope you have a very Merry Christmas with your loved ones. I have four more charts to share with you, but you will have to be a paid subscriber to enjoy.
