‘Christmas Spirit Is Alive and Well’, Despite Perceived Spiritual Void Due to Lack of Religious Affiliation and Attendance
BIG DATA POLL finds more than 9 in 10 U.S. registered voters celebrate Christmas and will take part in many festivities and traditions that color the holiday. The survey findings also indicate large majorities of voters still largely celebrate and view Christmas as a religious holiday and reflect on the birth of Jesus Christ, despite whether they attend services and among many who do not declare a religious affiliation.
“Despite talk of the holiday becoming too commercialized, Christmas Spirit is alive and well among U.S. registered voters,” BIG DATA POLL Director Rich Baris, said. “That said, the findings do suggest that there is a spiritual void the church is failing to fill.”
“People haven’t forgotten what Christmas is truly about and we should not mistake a crisis in faith leadership with a crisis of faith, itself.”
Interestingly, only 48.2% say they plan to attend religious services on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, while 46.7% say they will not and another 5.3% had no opinion. When asked how they personally celebrate Christmas, roughly a third (33.2%) say it’s a strongly religious holiday and another 35.2% say it’s somewhat religious. Slightly more than 1 in 4 (27.3%) say it’s not too religious.
Still, more than a supermajority (68.2%) say they reflect on and celebrate the birth of Christ. Further, 56.5% say they they display decorations with a religious meaning, such as a Nativity scene. Only 39.3% do not and 4.1% offered no opinion.
“Significant percentages of ‘nones’ celebrate Christmas as, and consider it to be, a religious holiday,” Director Baris added. “Yet, these voters do not go to church or have a religious affiliation.”
“Simply because someone considers themselves to have no religious affiliation, it doesn’t mean they disbelieve in God. It only suggests a disbelief in the ‘church’.”
Methodology
BIG DATA POLL interviewed 3,011 registered voters nationwide from December 16-18, 2023 via mixed-mode to include 2,772 likely voters screened by self-reported likelihood to vote and vote history. Interviews conducted online are sourced through Lucid (CINT) and phone interviews including P2P SMS and text-to-online are sourced from the Aristotle National Voter File Database. Likely primary voters were further screened for eligibility by registration and intent based on open and closed primary systems by state to include 1,339 Republican primary voters and 1,298 Democratic primary voters. Results were weighted for gender, age, race and ethnicity, education and income, geography and region. The overall sampling error is +/- 1.8% at a 95% confidence interval. The sampling errors for the Republican and Democratic Presidential Nominations are +/- 2.7% and +/- 2.7% at a 95% confidence interval, respectively. It is important to note that sampling errors for subgroups are higher. All BIG DATA POLL publicly conducted surveys are crowdfunded via the Public Polling Project, supplemented if necessary by BIG DATA POLL and are NOT funded by or affiliated with any candidate, campaign, committee, or political entity. Full and interactive crosstabs can be viewed on MarketSight.
