What they don't tell you about Christmas - 2024 edition

After a long hiatus, I realized it has been months since my last post. With the festive season upon us, it felt like the perfect time to reconnect and share something lighthearted yet thought-provoking. For this Christmas edition, I decided to compile six less-known facts about Christmas. Some are factual, others hypothetical, a few environmental, but all are interesting and conversation-worthy. Perfect to sprinkle into your chats with friends and family during the holidays! Merry Christmas.

1. The Christmas cardboard mountain: During the 2024 holiday season, the three major U.S. carriers (UPS, FedEx, and DHL) will deliver over 2 billion packages. Using about half a pound of cardboard per package, this means roughly 1 billion pounds of cardboard will be ?used for holiday deliveries - though thankfully about 70% came from recycled materials. The new cardboard used (about 307 million pounds) will require approximately 3.1 million trees to produce - equivalent to a forest covering approximately 12,000 football fields!

2. The rise of AI Christmas cards: In 2024, an estimated 15% of Christmas cards (about 300 million) will use AI-generated artwork or messages. Each AI-generated card consumes about 1 watt-hour of electricity - roughly equivalent to leaving an LED bulb on for an hour. While this might seem small, the total energy consumption for all AI-generated Christmas cards should amount to about 300,000 kWh, enough to power 34 homes for a year.

3. The Christmas EV power surge: Here's a mind-bending calculation: if all 40 million electric vehicles worldwide took a 100km Christmas trip to visit family and friends, they would consume about 930 million kWh of electricity. To put this into perspective, this single global Christmas journey would require enough energy to power about 100,000 homes for an entire year, or keep a nuclear power plant busy for 40 straight days! And this is just counting a single holiday trip!

4. The smart LED Christmas lights paradox: A typical 5-string setup of smart LED Christmas lights uses 85% less energy than traditional incandescent ones during December. If all U.S. and EU households kept such setup on for 12 hours a day throughout December, the total electricity consumption would soar to approximately 3 billion kWh. Generating this energy would require about 1.8 million barrels of oil or a nuclear plant operating for over three months.

5. The climate impact of Christmas dinner: A traditional U.S. Christmas turkey dinner with all the trimmings produces about 23.5 kg of CO2, while a plant-based alternative generates approximately 11.1 kg - a 53% reduction! The biggest contributor to the traditional dinner's footprint is the turkey itself, followed by the energy used for cooking. In 2024, surveys indicate about 30% of U.S. households are planning to include at least some plant-based alternatives in their Christmas meal, primarily driven by environmental considerations.

6. The hidden cost of Christmas returns: Here's a fascinating calculation: if every person in the U.S. and E.U. (ca 780 million people) gives 'just' 3 gifts for Christmas, that's 2.3 billion presents! Even with a conservative 10% return rate, about 230 million gifts will head back to stores in January. At $25 per return for processing (shipping, handling, restocking), retailers are likely to spend around $5.9 billion just handling these returns - that's nearly a quarter of NASA's annual budget, or the healthcare costs for almost a coupe of year in Estonia, just for dealing with unwanted gifts!

If you know some more fun facts, please share to everybody’s benefit.

Merry Christmas to you all!