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COVID-19 & Thanksgiving: How Will Americans Celebrate in 2021?

Like the 2020 holiday season, America is faced with uncertainty regarding COVID-19 as the Delta and the more recent Omicron variant continue to spread.

In our November 2020 post, we asked respondents how they planned to celebrate Thanksgiving last year. At that time, more than half (54%) of respondents planned on celebrating Thanksgiving at home with members of their household exclusively. At that time, 14% of respondents planned on celebrating at home with non-household members.


However, this year's Thanksgiving celebrations may look different than last year's. In our most recent survey, we continued to ask respondents how they planned on celebrating Thanksgiving this year.


We found that 35% of respondents intended on celebrating at home with household members only – a 19% decrease compared to the previous year. Furthermore, we observed a 13% increase among respondents celebrating at home with non-household members and a 6% increase among those traveling in-state to celebrate with friends and family.


Consistent with last year’s findings, our latest results show that 55% of respondents will not modify their celebrations to follow the recommended CDC guidelines. Furthermore, there continues to be a political divide regarding which guidelines respondents would implement. Specifically, Democrats are least likely to indicate "none of the above" (37%) and most likely to limit the number of attendees and request that guests be fully vaccinated.


 

Last updated on December 13, 2021. Please check back for updates.


Results based on surveys of 182 respondents from November 20, 2021 through November 22, 2021. All surveys were conducted online from respondents in the United States.


For more information about our survey techniques, click here to visit our Methods page.

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