Where Your Christmas Dollar Goes – Frankly, you may not want to know where it goes …
40% Presents:
6% Presents with no useful functions.
4% Presents with a function, but which will never be used.
10% Presents the recipient will say they like, but really hate.
11% Presents you really want for yourself, and plan to use after the intended recipients get tired of them.
6% Presents for people you hate, but feel you have to buy for.
3% T-shirts with writings on them.
* Presents you really like and can use
* Too small a % to be statistically significant.
21% Decorations:
6% Christmas tree (less if you’re really cheap and wait till Dec. 24th to buy it!).
1% Christmas tree lights to replace the ones that burned out last year.
1% Christmas tree lights to replace the ones you stepped on this year.
2% Christmas tree ornaments.
3% Christmas tree ornament hooks (includes the gas for that extra trip
you always have to make back to store because there weren’t enough hooks
supplied with the ornaments).
1% A new star for the top.
2% Tinsel (which everyone will put on the tree incorrectly, starting a very bad, and possibly violent, family argument).
2% Outdoor displays.
2% Medical bills for injuries sustained while putting up outdoor displays.
1% Fuses to replace those blown when turning on outdoor displays for the first time.
8% Food and Drink:
1% More eggnog than the entire Osmond family could even drink.
.5% Foods you would never buy any other time of the year (for example, fruitcakes, mincemeat, etc.).
1% Alcoholic beverages (triple this figure if you have relatives coming from out of town).
1% Milk and cookies the kids make leave out for Santa.
1% Candy canes that nobody ever eats.
3% Turkey.
.5% Antacid.
9% Entertainment:
1% That new record you buy every year (even though you already have 57 hours of recorded Christmas music).
3% Taking a bunch of kids to a really crummy G-rated movie about cute little animals.
12% Miscellaneous:
3% Sickly-sweet Christmas Cards.
2% Postage for same.
2% Bonuses for people who don’t even deserve them (like that lousy paper boy).
1% Candles.
1% Plastic mistletoe.
2% Money tossed into street-corner Santa’s buckets.
1% Money for the collection plate for your once-a-year trip to church for Christmas Mass.
10% Batteries
9% Batteries the wrong size to fit anything that needs them
1% Batteries that fit the items, but one fewer than needed
