We are feeling excited, grateful and stressed about the holidays

While positive emotions are the first thing many Americans associate with the holidays, stress and worry are extremely close behind, according to the Ipsos Consumer Tracker

10.10.25

The Ipsos Consumer Tracker asks Americans questions about culture, the economy and the forces that shape our lives. Here's one thing we learned this week.

Chart showing that nearly as many people feel stressed about the holidays as joyful

Why we asked: We’ve met the holidays. So how festive are folks feeling as Christmas decorations line the shelves, nudging out Halloween costumes that have been stocked since <checks notes> May?

What we found: It would be wrong to say that there are favorite Tracker questions, but one could make the case that if so, this one belongs on the list. This question is helpful because it acknowledges the fact that the holiday season brings a big mix of emotions and they aren’t all festive and celebratory. It’s good for marketers to remember that.

Yes, “grateful,” “happy,” “joyful” and “excited” are the top choices. But nipping right at their heels comes “stressed.” And a not-insignificant portion say “worried” (19%) or “sad/depressed” (15%). We added sad and depressed this year after it showed up so many times in the verbatims last year.

We followed up with those feeling more negative emotions, and asked them why they feel that way. Economic stress is the biggest reason by far, as two in three say they’re worried about paying for gifts (see elsewhere from this wave of the consumer tracker for more on that). We are less worried this year about finding the perfect gift (29%, down from 41% last year), which is interesting. Perhaps the difference is those folks asking AI to help them with gift ideas feeling confident they’ll get answers? But many are also worried about managing family relations (32%) and twice as many (21% vs 11%) say they’re stressed about travel costs and logistics as prices rise and the government shutdown is already impacting the travel system.

In the verbatims this year, there’s some ambivalence in the data as responses of “bored” “indifferent” “neutral,” and the slightly darker spin on that, “numb,” show up repeatedly. One person summed all of those up as, “meh.” As to why they’re not feeling as festive, the reasons range from personal like “missing my loved ones,” to economic like “no money to live on,” to socio-political like “state of the country,” to the intersection of those — “tariffs are going to make my shopping harder and more expensive.”