Math for Grownups
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Christmas by the Numbers

There’s a lot more to this time of year than the 12 days of Christmas, 3 wise men or 5 golden rings. Between digging out our credit cards and stringing hundreds of twinkly lights on the gutters, most of us have more numbers than sugar plums dancing in our heads.

And so, I bring you Christmas by the Numbers, a round up of interesting statistics about this huge holiday.

93: Percent of Americans (in 2008) who say they celebrate Christmas

81: Percent of Americans (in 2008) who identify with Christian faith

$427 million: Predicted sales of Christmas cards in 2012

4.1: Percent that holiday sales are expected to rise in 2012 over the previous year

12: Percent that online holiday sales are expected to rise

625,000: Predicted number of seasonal workers expected to be hired this holiday season.

25-30 million: Number of real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. each year

7: Average growing time (in years) of a six- to seven-foot tall Christmas tree

4,000: Number of Christmas tree recycling programs across the country

749.51: Dollars expected to be spent on gifts, decor and cards by the average holiday shopper this year

60: Percent of holiday shoppers expected to “self-gift”

1: Rank of gift cards in list of popular Christmas present requests

10: Percent chance of a white Christmas in my city (Baltimore, MD)

Any statistics that you’d like to see? Share your ideas in the comments section. Happy holidays!

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In Holidays

Thanksgiving by the Numbers

It’s turkey time here in the U.S. — the weekend we celebrate family, friends and all of the blessings in our lives. And since I’m certainly thankful for math (seriously!), I thought we should take a look at some interesting Thanksgiving numbers.

391: The number of years since the first Thanksgiving

90: The estimated number of Wampanoag tribe members who attended the first Thanksgiving

1789: The year of the first “national day of Thanksgiving”

40: The number of years that Sarah Josepha Hale advocated for an annual, national Thanksgiving holiday

254 million: The number of turkeys expected to be raised in the U.S. in 2012

6: The number of “home economists” who were hired to answer 11,000 phone calls for the Butterball Turkey Hotline‘s inaugural year in 1981

50: The number hired to answer more than 100,000 calls last year.

165: The number of degrees of a safely cooked turkey, according to the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

768 million: Projected number of pounds of cranberries expected to be produced in the U.S. in 2012

50: Percent increase in plumber calls and visits on the day after Thanksgiving, over any other Friday of the year

43.6 million: Number of Americans expected to travel more than 50 miles during the 2012 Thanksgiving holiday

90: Percent expected to travel by car

25: Number of balloon floats in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

How are you spending your Thanksgiving holiday? What math is involved? Share your responses in the comments section.

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In Math for Grownups

Oprah by the Numbers

Wondering how you (or someone you love) is going to survive without the Daytime Diva?  Here’s a selection of stats about her show, from SheKnows:

  1. About 1.3 million people came to see her show over the last 25 seasons.
  2. Most frequent female guest?  Celine Dion with 27 appearances.
  3. Most frequent male guest?  Chris Rock with 25 appearances.  (That’s not counting Dr. Phil, who came on the show a whopping 118 times!)
  4. Total number of cars given away: 570

Read the rest at SheKnows!

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