Most (55%) North Carolinians think September and October is too early for retailers to start stocking their shelves for Christmas, according to the latest High Point University Poll. About one-third (29%) think that’s not too early, while 17% of poll respondents are undecided. 

Almost half (44%) of North Carolinians said they plan to decorate for the holidays around Thanksgiving, while about one-third (28%) wait until early December. Another 11% start planning to decorate for the holidays right after Halloween.

When asked when they plan on removing holiday decorations, most North Carolinians said New Year’s Day (39%), into January (33%), and on Dec. 26th (11%). Only 2% said they plan on keeping up holiday decorations year-round.

All adults – Retailers getting ready for Christmas (November 2022)

Some retailers begin stocking for Christmas in September and October. Do you think it is too early for them to start stocking their shelves for Christmas?

Yes – 55%

Maybe – 15%

No – 29%

Unsure – 2% 

All adults – Holiday Decorations (November 2022) 

When do you plan to decorate for the holidays? 

Right after Halloween – 11%

Around Thanksgiving – 44%

Early December – 28%

Unsure – 17% 

NC residents – Removing Holiday Decorations (November 2022) 

When do you plan removing holiday decorations? 

Dec. 26^th – 11%

New Year’s Day – 39%

Keep up all year round – 2%

Into January – 33%

The most recent HPU Poll of 1,009 North Carolinians was fielded by the High Point University Survey Research Center on Oct. 19 through Oct. 26, as an online survey using a panel of respondents recruited and maintained by Dynata. Dynata sent invitations to its panel of N.C. respondents and the SRC collected responses on its Qualtrics platform. The SRC did all data analysis. The online sample is from a panel of respondents, and their participation does not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection. Therefore, it is not appropriate to assign a classic margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 3.0 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.1 (based on the weighting). The data is weighed toward population estimates for age, gender, race/ethnicity and education based on U.S. Census numbers for North Carolina. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional errors into the findings of opinion polls.

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past surveys can be found at the Survey Research Center website. The materials online include past press releases as well as memos summarizing the findings (including approval ratings) for each poll since 2010.

The HPU Poll reports methodological details in accordance with the standards set out by AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, and the HPU Survey Research Center is a Charter Member of the Initiative. See more information here. 

You can follow the HPU Poll on Twitter here.

Dr. Martin Kifer, chair and associate professor of political science, serves as the director of the HPU Poll, and Brian McDonald is the associate director of the HPU Poll.