Numerator's 2026 Holiday Preview Shows When and What Shoppers Buy

The biggest divide in holiday shopping is not between spenders and savers. It is between planners and procrastinators, and Numerator's 2026 Annual Holiday Preview makes clear the gap falls along very specific calendar lines.

Numerator surveyed more than 5,300 U.S. consumers on their celebration, shopping, and spending plans across major holidays, and found that most holiday plans are finalized in the two weeks before the occasion, food and alcohol are near-universal must-haves, and most shoppers will spend over $50 per celebration.

The holidays that are planned one to three months in advance are Christmas (83% of intended celebrators), Halloween (67%), Hanukkah (60%), and Thanksgiving (50%). For everything else on the calendar, short-lead buying is the norm.

If you're gifting for multiple holidays

Christmas is the most widely intended celebration, with 92% of Americans planning to observe it, followed by Thanksgiving at 90%, Mother's Day at 79%, Easter at 75%, and Independence Day at 72%. Spending expectations across those occasions vary sharply. Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas will see the highest anticipated spending, with 84% of shoppers expecting to spend more than $100 on Christmas in 2026. Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Cinco de Mayo fall at the opposite end, with consumers planning to spend less than $50 to celebrate. If your gift list spans several of these occasions, Christmas and Hanukkah deserve their own budget line and their own early timeline. The rest of the calendar can follow the two-week rule.

If you're waiting for deals

Price and value are the primary drivers when budgets tighten, and the survey confirms that shoppers trade down rather than opt out. The deals that matter most are concentrated in the two-week window before most holidays. For Christmas and Halloween, the longer planning runway gives gift-givers room to shop promotional cycles without missing the moment. Christmas and Halloween also drew the highest enthusiasm scores, with 40% and 50% of celebrators respectively rating the holiday a four or five on a five-point effort scale. Labor Day (47%), New Year's Eve (46%), and Memorial Day (45%) rated as the most casual celebrations. High-effort holidays justify earlier, considered purchases. Low-effort ones do not.

If you need shipping-safe gifts

Food is the most popular item consumers plan to purchase for 12 out of 14 key holidays tracked in the survey, led by Thanksgiving (86%), Labor Day (83%), Independence Day (83%), Memorial Day (81%), and New Year's Eve (78%). The only two holidays where food is not the top purchased item are Valentine's Day and Halloween, because candy claims the top spot for both. Alcohol ranks as the second-highest must-have for half of the year's holidays. For anyone shipping a gift across the country, food and beverage bundles are not just crowd-pleasers; they are exactly what recipients expect and hosts genuinely need.

Cinco de Mayo is the most spontaneous holiday on the calendar, with 35% of celebrators making plans just one to two days in advance. That spontaneity, combined with a sub-$50 spend expectation, is its own category: grab-and-go, no-occasion-required, no-planning-required gifting. The rest of the year has a planning calendar. This one does not, and that is the point.