ACTA Fall 2025 Survey
Our survey finds that there are a lot of festivities that Americans are looking forward to this holiday season. According to our data, approximately 90% of Americans are excited to see friends and family (94% - with 3% not excited at all!), look at lights (90%), and open presents (89%). Close behind in the 80% range are festive favorites such as watching movies (86%), baking cookies (83%), and hanging ornaments (83%).
Americans are eager to make their spirits bright, but we see the potential for ongoing trade disputes to put a lump of coal in everyone’s stockings. Holiday shopping budgets are a concern for many Americans, particularly with China threatening to disrupt economic conditions with their tariffs. 84% of Americans believe that Christmas decorations have gotten more expensive in recent years, and 63% are concerned that China’s tariffs will make Christmas decorations more expensive this year than they were last year. We found that 67% of Americans support a tariff exemption on Christmas decorations similar to the narrow exemption President Trump issued in 2019 to save Christmas. Furthermore, 68% of our sample believes that Donald Trump should do whatever he can to help Americans afford Christmas decorations such as stockings and artificial trees.
Christmas Movies
On a festive note, we provided our sample with a list of twelve classic Christmas movies to see which ones emerged as America’s favorites. With 15% of the vote each, our survey nds that America’s favorite Christmas movies are “A Christmas Story” and “Home Alone”. Other lms rounding out the top 5 included “Elf” (11%), “It’s a Wonderful Life” (11%), and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (9%).
We also waded into one of America’s biggest cultural debates…is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie. The results are split: while 41% of our sample considers “Die Hard” to be a Christmas movie, 46% believe that it is not. Perhaps not surprisingly, men were far more passionate about “Die Hard” as a Christmas movie than women: 50% of the men in our survey consider “Die Hard” to be a Christmas movie compared to only 32% of the women.
Methodology: On behalf of the American Christmas Tree Association, the Tyson Group conducted an online nationwide survey to see which Christmas traditions and holiday classics are the most popular among American families. Our sample consisted of n = 1,000 adults who stated that they celebrated Christmas, giving us a margin of error of 3.1%. This survey was completed via online panel between October 29 and 30, 2025.