With only 22 days to go until Christmas (Whaaat? Where did the year go? Etc, etc), the Warehouse has revealed NZ's festive habits - with surprising results.
Their first ever Kiwi Christmas Unwrapped Survey asked all kinds of questions about what kind of treats they leave out for Santa, how they're spending Christmas day and who's the hardest family member to buy gifts for - looking at you, dad.
But as the thirty-something 'baby' of my family, the stat that caught my attention most was the fact that 36% of respondents said the adults in their house, or they themselves still receive a stocking over the age of 18.
This has long been a point of contention in my household. My brothers, 10 and 14 years older than me respectively, both got stockings well into their third decades of life, while my run was cruelly cut short at around 26 due to the influx of - very beloved, I should add - nieces and nephews joining the family.
If you can't be a brat around Christmas, when can you be?
Adding insult to injury, the survey showed 15% of Kiwis gift their PETS a Christmas stocking.
Still, if anyone should be complaining, it's Santa himself, who for all his hard work bringing presents from the North Pole, won't be receiving milk and cookies from over half of the Kiwi households he visits. 57% will let him go hungry, while 32% will leave cookies, and 13% will suss him out with a cold glass of beer.
And as for one of the fiercest debates - when is too soon to put up your Christmas tree? The majority of Kiwis reckon November is a no-go, with 66% of households waiting until December to deck the halls.
So there you have it - some extra ammunition to arm yourself for the annual debate around the dining table after auntie has had one too many chardonnays. Better to keep it Christmas-themed than get into politics, right?!
I, for one, will be using this information to justify a mountain of Boxing Day sales purchases for my own stocking, from 'me' to 'me'.
