Christmas shoppers in the UK are nearly the most generous in the world, topped only by people in Ireland.
Spending in Ireland was an average of £750 per person over the course of November and December last year while the average British shopper spent £680 on goods for Christmas last year, according to a report from PwC.
This put both nations ahead of the US, with an average spend of £495 per person, and France where individuals spent £366 each.
The UK and Germany are the only major economies where festive expenditure exceeded their pre-crisis levels, according to PwC’s latest Global Economy Watch report.
But Germany’s average per person spending was still nearly half that of the UK at £331.
UK outlay has changed little in ten years with spending averaging just under £650 ten years ago and £659 in 2007, but now real incomes are 6% less than they were in 2007.
Spending in Portugal last year was £357 on average, down from £469 in 2007. Most of the EU peripheral economies cut back. Average per person Christmas spending in Italy was £295 in 2013, and only £120 in Greece (down by 60%) and £117 in Spain.
Total Christmas period spending amounted to around £284 billion in the Western world.
