Christmas Dinner Stats

Most Brits don’t want the traditional turkey Christmas dinner and 1 in 7 would rather have fast food as their festive feast.

 

Our favourite thing about Christmas is getting everyone together around the dining table for a big family meal. Getting together with our loved ones to talk, share memories and tell terrible Christmas cracker jokes around the table is a real highlight.

 

We assume most of us enjoy a traditional turkey dinner, but we polled 1,000 UK residents to ask about their preferred meal on Christmas Day.

 

In this article, we share facts and figures surrounding Christmas Dinners in the UK in 2019. We reveal the average cost of a Christmas dinner, what time of year most of us start making our festive food plans and most importantly what type of meal is most popular on Christmas Day. 

What type of meal do Brits prefer for Christmas? 

We know what you’re thinking, the answer’s easy - a good old Roast Turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Well, the furniture retailer Lifestyle Furniture recently conducted a poll to discover which kinds of food 1,000 people in the UK would most like to eat on Christmas Day. And the results are quite surprising.

 

  • Shockingly,just under half (49.9%) of people in the UK would opt for a traditional roast Turkey Dinner on Christmas Day.

 

  • A quarter of us (25.4%) prefers a different type of meat with our roast dinners, such as Chicken, Beef or Lamb.

 

  • 1 in 7 Brits would rather have fast food as their Christmas meal, with 14.2% of people in the UK saying they’d choose Pizza, Indian or Chinese food over a traditional roast dinner.

 

  • Vegetarian alternatives are also rather popular, with 8.1% of people in the UK opting for a meat-free meal at Christmas. 

 

  • Despite the popularity of vegetarian food at Christmas, less than 1 in every 300 of us would choose a Vegan meal when given the choice. 

 

As the graph above shows, the majority of people (50.1%) would rather not have a roast turkey dinner this Christmas. Instead, 1 in 4 people say they would have a roast, but they’d prefer a different type of meat, such as Chicken, Beef or Lamb. 

 

It also turns out that many of us (16.4%) don’t actually want a roast dinner at all, and would much prefer a less traditional option such as Pizza (5.9%), a Chinese takeaway or meal out (4.1%) or an Indian takeaway or restaurant meal (4.2%). 

 

A recent survey conducted in 2018 found that 7% of the UK population are vegan and follow plant-based diets. However, just 0.3% of our study’s participants say they would choose a vegan meal on Christmas Day. 

 

Vegetarian Christmas dinner, on the other hand, was a rather more popular choice, with around 1 in every 12 people saying that they would prefer a vegetarian alternative Christmas meal. 

When do us Brits start thinking about Christmas? 

As the classic Christmas tune tells;  ‘it’s the most wonderful time of the year’. But how early do we really start thinking about our Christmas plans? And most importantly, when do we start planning our scrumptious festive spreads?

 

Research conducted by the furniture retailer Lifestyle Furniture has found that in the UK some people start preparing for their Christmas Day meal as early as August! Their research found that an average of 487 searches are made every August for ‘Christmas Dinner Ideas’. This search volume then rises to 1,700 in September and 4,400 in October. 

 

During the Christmas season, the search volume for this term increases significantly, with an average of 13,900 searches for ‘Christmas Dinner Ideas’ being made in November alone and a massive 35,566 searches throughout the month of December. 

 

The graph below shows the average search volume per month for ‘Christmas Dinner Ideas’ over the last 3 years. 

 

The average number of monthly searches for ‘Christmas dinner ideas’ from 2016-2018 according to the tool Keyword Finder. 

What’s the average cost for a Christmas dinner?

Some say it’s a crime to eat out on Christmas Day, insisting that being at home with the family is a tradition and is the only place you should be for Christmas. Others find that cooking Christmas dinner at home causes more hassle and stress than it’s worth, so would rather enjoy their festive meal at a restaurant. 

 

There are pros and cons of both options, but how much more does it cost on average to eat out on Christmas Day as opposed to having your Christmas at home?   

Christmas dinner at home 

 

Last year, Good Housekeeping calculated the total cost of Christmas dinner ingredients for a family of eight from 10 of the UK’s leading supermarkets. The study found that the cheapest supermarket to buy Christmas dinner supplies is Aldi, with the total cost of their most affordable Christmas dinner items totalling £26.43, which works out at just £3.30 per head - Bargain!  

 

The most expensive supermarket for Christmas dinner items was found to be Waitrose, with their most affordable basket coming to £43.98, that’s £5.50 per head, meaning that their Christmas dinner supplies cost an average of £2.20 more per person than if you bought the same ingredients from Aldi. 

Eating out for Christmas dinner 

 

The average cost in the UK for a family of 7 to eat out on Christmas day has been estimated to come to the grand total of £340.57. That’s an average of £48.65 per head, which is over 10 times more expensive than the average cost of having Christmas at home. 

 

But are these extra costs worth it for the amount of time, effort and stress saved? Well, some of us definitely think so, as 1 in 10 Brits enjoys their Christmas dinner out at a restaurant every year - it may not save money, but at least it saves on the washing up! 

 

We hope this article has brought you up to date with all the latest Christmas Statistics. We don’t know about you, but all this talk of Christmas has got us in the mood for food! Let us know what your typical Christmas Dinner looks like by sharing your Insta posts with us @lifestylefurnitureltd.