The results are in, and it’s a triumph for York.
The city has been named the most Christmassy in England in a new survey.
And it only comes second to Edinburgh in the top festive places across the UK.
The research, conducted for Hammonds Furniture, was based on a survey of 2,000 people, plus Christmas Instagram posts, festive lights, events, markets – and even Met Office snowfall data.
It compared a number of Christmassy factors in order to find the ‘ultimate festive day-out destinations’*’. The finds were then combined to rank each city out of a possible 100.
And these are the UK’s most festive towns and cities
- Edinburgh – 95%
- York – 84%
- Glasgow – 83%
- Leicester – 80%
- Manchester – 78%
- Lisburn – 75%
- Newcastle – 71%
- Blackpool – 70%
- Oxford – 69%
- Norwich – 67%
The least festive cities were found to be Derry, Wrexham and Bradford.
York residents also have plenty of festive cheer, according to the survey – with one in six (16%) locals putting their Christmas decorations up as early as the first week of November.
And the city boasts two permanent Christmas shops – the Nutcracker Christmas Shop on Shambles and Käthe Wohlfahrt, the German-based store which offers “a magical Christmas world on two floors” of Stonegate.
The survey also found 11k posts under the hashtag #YorkChristmasMarket on Instagram, making it one of the most popular markets to shared on the channel.