---
title: "Part 3: The rise of active online holiday celebrants"
description: "Holidays online It has become clear that between a quarter and a third of U.S. Internet users have become quite attached to using the Internet to celebrate the holidays and shop for gifts online. It is a growing group and certainly would have fallen well below 10% of Internet users just several years ago. Active […]"
date: "2003-01-07"
authors:
  - name: "Pew Research Center"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2003/01/07/part-3-the-rise-of-active-online-holiday-celebrants/"
---

# Part 3: The rise of active online holiday celebrants

### Holidays online

It has become clear that between a quarter and a third of U.S. Internet users have become quite attached to using the Internet to celebrate the holidays and shop for gifts online. It is a growing group and certainly would have fallen well below 10% of Internet users just several years ago. Active online celebrants can be identified in a variety of ways – their use of email, the level of their purchases online, the frequency with which they do window-shopping online. We decided to use a moderately expansive definition of them by focusing on their email use. The analysis in this section focuses on the one-third of email users who used email with family *and* friends to make holiday plans or about holiday events. This definition of “active online celebrant” applies to about 30 million Americans.

![How online holiday enthusiasts stand out](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/media/AF7A2016A2AA45D7B0C059EFE47009F8.jpg)

These relatively enthusiastic holiday emails are more likely to shop online for holiday gifts (32% v. 23%) and window shop (56% v. 43%). Eager emailers do a little bit more of everything than the average Internet user. For instance, their average online holiday expenditure this year was $477 versus the $407 average.

Online experience is the likely driver of this enthusiasm. Two-thirds of ardent emailers (68%) have been online for 5 or more years compared with 55% for all users. Furthermore, a high-speed connection may also contribute to online shopping -- 25% of home Internet users have high-speed connections in this sample; for ardent emailers the home high-speed number is 33%. Also, for home broadband users, the average online holiday expenditure was $480 this year. For ardent emailers with broadband at home, the average expenditure was $544 for online holiday purchases.

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**Next:** [Methodology](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2003/01/07/methodology-145-2.md)