While holidays serve as a time for gathering and showing appreciation for loved ones, they can also be a stressful period for a variety of reasons. Meal planning, especially for the big day can be quite the chore, so one avenue for taking off at least some of the night before stress is ordering food and takeout for the final dinner before the holiday itself. The latest in ongoing CivicScience data finds 11% of U.S. adult respondents (excluding ‘does not apply’) say they always order takeout for dinner the night before a major holiday. Another 27% say they do this ‘occasionally,’ while one-third report that they never do this. Habits differ notably by the region in which they reside, with those living in the western U.S. most likely to say they always do this. 

Here’s what else CivicScience data has to say when honing in specifically on how those whose families ‘always’ order takeout and those who never do this compare to each other:

Coping with Holiday Stress: Those who always order food out for dinner the night before a major holiday are 5.5X more likely than non-orderers to say they cope with holiday stress by exercising. Meanwhile, non-orderers are more than 2.5 times as likely to say they relieve holiday stress by spending time alone. 

Matching Pajamas: Families who order takeout before a holiday are far more likely than those who do not to say that their family wears matching pajama sets on special occasions, such as holidays or vacations (56% to 8%, respectively). 

Grocery Delivery Usage: Fifty-three percent of takeout orderers say they use grocery delivery, far outpacing the 20% who say the same among those who don’t eat takeout for dinner the night before holidays. 

Cord Cutting: Nearly 8 in 10 of those who order takeout the night before a holiday say they’ve cut the cord on their cable or satellite packages, compared to just under one-third of non-takeout orderers. 

Athletic Apparel and Footwear Purchasing: When it comes to where they typically buy athletic apparel and footwear, holiday takeout orderers are far more likely to say they opt for big-box store shopping (42% to 17%, respectively). Conversely, non-orders are more than twice as likely to purchase their athletic apparel online (29% to 13%).

The data suggest that pre-holiday takeout habits function as a surprisingly accurate predictor of modern consumer behavior, with those who outsource this meal representing households that have fully embraced the convenience economy while non-orderers maintain more traditional, self-reliant approaches to both holiday preparation and everyday consumption choices.

Do you typically order takeout for dinner the night before a major holiday? Take this poll now:

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This article’s data comes solely from CivicScience’s database, which contains nearly 700,000 poll questions and 5 billion consumer insights.