Christmas preparations take 12 days, 14 hrs and 13 mins: study

Between shopping for presents, hanging decorations, and preparing and cooking a festive feast, the hours moms and dads devote to making Christmas Day as special as possible add up to almost two weeks, a media report said.

All that organising is not restricted to the festive season itself - the average British family begins planning and saving money for Christmas in the last week of August, while one in seven start buying gifts in the January sales.

But not everybody is quite so well-prepared, a third of families leave all the work to the four weeks leading up to December 25.

The survey of 2,000 UK parents, commissioned by Wilkinsons, found that nine days, 15 hours and 48 minutes is spent researching and shopping for presents.

A further three hours and 26 minutes is spent wrapping the gifts, while writing Christmas cards takes up two hours and 31 minutes.

A total of three hours and six minutes is spent retrieving decorations from the loft and hanging them up around the house, while two days, 10 hours and 48 minutes is taken up thinking, planning and shopping for food for Christmas dinner.

A further two hours and 34 minutes is spent cooking the festive feast and laying the table.

"A lot of time and effort goes into making Christmas Day the most special of the year, and thanks to our research we are able to pinpoint exactly how much time and effort it takes," Steph Chambers, Christmas buyer for the company, said.

"So from now on, we won't talk about the 12 days of Christmas but the 12 days, 14 hours and 13 minutes of Christmas.

"All the effort that parents put in shows just how important an event a family Christmas is. It is a great tradition and despite any stresses and strains most of us wouldn't have it any other way," she added.

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