The box we leave empty
When people ask Giftruly for a gift idea, they can describe the person's tastes and interests in an optional box. In 22,709 Christmas searches, that box was left empty far more often when the gift was for a woman.
- gift searches since 2023
- 85,308
- of them at Christmas
- 22,709
- pairs lean the same way
- 4/4
By Giftruly · Updated
One hundred Christmas searches each
13 more empty boxes for hersearches for a mother left the box empty
searches for a father left the box empty
Christmas searches made in November and December 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Every pair leans the same way
Whatever the relationship, the interests box is left empty more often when the gift is for the woman. The size of the gap changes from pair to pair. The direction doesn't.
Share of Christmas searches with the interests box left empty
Wife and husband were typed by hand rather than picked from a button, so they rest on fewer searches (392 and 314).
| Who the gift is for | Searches | Box left empty | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mother | 2,631 | 940 | 35.7% |
| Father | 2,028 | 475 | 23.4% |
| Wife | 392 | 103 | 26.3% |
| Husband | 314 | 31 | 9.9% |
| Girlfriend | 2,190 | 678 | 31.0% |
| Boyfriend | 1,939 | 353 | 18.2% |
| Daughter | 1,777 | 478 | 26.9% |
| Son | 2,554 | 562 | 22.0% |
Dads cook. So do mothers.
Among searches for a father that name at least one interest, cooking comes first, ahead of golf and fishing. For mothers, cooking leads by an even wider margin.
Cooking is named about twice as often for mothers (13.5%) as for fathers (7.0%).
Share of searches that name at least one interest
Interests are counted as typed, so “clothes” and “fashion” are separate. All searches since 2023, not only Christmas.
| Interest | Searches | Share |
|---|---|---|
| For a father: Cooking | 261 | 7.0% |
| For a father: Golf | 175 | 4.7% |
| For a father: Fishing | 160 | 4.3% |
| For a father: Music | 155 | 4.2% |
| For a father: Cars | 143 | 3.8% |
| For a father: Gardening | 120 | 3.2% |
| For a mother: Cooking | 584 | 13.5% |
| For a mother: Fashion | 373 | 8.6% |
| For a mother: Gardening | 292 | 6.7% |
| For a mother: Reading | 260 | 6.0% |
| For a mother: Clothes | 150 | 3.5% |
| For a mother: Travel | 131 | 3.0% |
Christmas budgets stay in the middle
When people picked a budget for a Christmas gift, six in ten chose $50 to $100. Only one in seven went above $100.
The budget was a choice of preset buttons in US dollars, so the middle option is naturally the most popular.
| Budget | Searches | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $50 | 4,660 | 25.7% |
| $50 to $100 | 10,857 | 59.9% |
| Over $100 | 2,594 | 14.3% |
Useful beats funny, three to one
Some people also describe the kind of gift they want, in another optional box. “Useful” comes up far more than anything else.
Share of all searches that mention the word in the optional style box
Counted when the style box contains the word or a close one (practical counts as useful, elegant as classy). All searches since 2023.
| Style | Searches | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Useful | 12,677 | 14.9% |
| Classy | 5,138 | 6.0% |
| Funny | 4,308 | 5.0% |
| Sentimental | 636 | 0.7% |
Most of the searching is done by mid-December
A typical Christmas season builds through November, peaks around December 10, then drops fast. In each of the last two seasons, more than eight in ten Christmas searches came before December 18.
Share of a season's Christmas searches per day, averaged over 7 days
The typical season takes, for each day, the middle value of the three seasons, rescaled to add up to 100%, so a one-day spike in one year (like December 19, 2023) doesn't drive it.
| Day | Share of the season |
|---|---|
| November 1 | 0.47% |
| November 2 | 0.53% |
| November 3 | 0.54% |
| November 4 | 0.53% |
| November 5 | 0.62% |
| November 6 | 0.65% |
| November 7 | 0.76% |
| November 8 | 0.76% |
| November 9 | 0.79% |
| November 10 | 0.85% |
| November 11 | 0.91% |
| November 12 | 0.98% |
| November 13 | 1.03% |
| November 14 | 1.04% |
| November 15 | 1.12% |
| November 16 | 1.13% |
| November 17 | 1.23% |
| November 18 | 1.26% |
| November 19 | 1.39% |
| November 20 | 1.59% |
| November 21 | 1.70% |
| November 22 | 1.82% |
| November 23 | 1.92% |
| November 24 | 1.90% |
| November 25 | 2.07% |
| November 26 | 2.08% |
| November 27 | 1.98% |
| November 28 | 2.01% |
| November 29 | 1.92% |
| November 30 | 1.96% |
| December 1 | 2.07% |
| December 2 | 1.99% |
| December 3 | 2.02% |
| December 4 | 2.15% |
| December 5 | 2.28% |
| December 6 | 2.50% |
| December 7 | 2.65% |
| December 8 | 2.72% |
| December 9 | 3.29% |
| December 10 | 3.48% |
| December 11 | 3.42% |
| December 12 | 3.27% |
| December 13 | 3.31% |
| December 14 | 3.33% |
| December 15 | 3.25% |
| December 16 | 2.79% |
| December 17 | 2.58% |
| December 18 | 2.60% |
| December 19 | 2.50% |
| December 20 | 2.24% |
| December 21 | 1.91% |
| December 22 | 1.62% |
| December 23 | 1.33% |
| December 24 | 1.01% |
| December 25 | 0.73% |
| December 26 | 0.51% |
| December 27 | 0.34% |
| December 28 | 0.22% |
| December 29 | 0.20% |
| December 30 | 0.16% |
| December 31 | 0.14% |
How we counted
- All gift searches85,308
- With Christmas as the occasion26,141
- Made in November or December22,709
- With a budget picked18,111
- Searches
- One search is one request to the gift finder. We keep no names, emails or accounts, so when one person searched several times, each search counts: these are searches, not people.
- Christmas searches
- Searches with the occasion set to Christmas, made in November or December 2023, 2024 and 2025: 22,709 in all.
- The interests box
- An optional free-text box labelled “Your [person]'s tastes and interests”. Empty means nothing was typed in it.
- Who the gift is for
- Picked from buttons (mother, father, daughter, son, girlfriend, boyfriend, friend) or typed. Spellings and translations of the same person are merged, so mom, mum and madre all count as mother.
- Source and period
- Giftruly's original gift finder, in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, from September 24, 2023 to October 15, 2026: 85,308 searches. Only totals leave the database; no search text is published.
What to keep in mind
- This is what people typed into a gift finder, not a survey. An empty box doesn't mean someone knows nothing about the person, only that they didn't write it down.
- January 2024 had a one-off spike of 22,262 searches from younger users. It falls outside the Christmas window, so it doesn't affect the Christmas numbers.
- Smaller gaps, like daughters (27%) against sons (22%), rest on a few thousand searches each.
Using these numbers
You're welcome to use any number or chart on this page in an article. Please credit Giftruly and, online, link to this page. For more detail or a different cut of the data, email contact@giftruly.com.
Ready-to-quote lines
At Christmas, people leave the “tastes and interests” box empty in 36% of searches for their mother, against 23% for their father (Giftruly, 22,709 Christmas searches).
In Christmas searches on Giftruly, the interests box is left empty for 26% of wives but only 10% of husbands (392 and 314 searches).
Cooking is the interest people type most often when looking for a gift for their father, ahead of golf and fishing (Giftruly, 6,121 searches).
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