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$770: The cost of your Christmas shopping, Gallup poll says

Black Friday shoppers at a Target in Burbank. Christmas gifts will cost consumers $770 each on average this year, a survey says.
(Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)
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For the average American, $770 is no small sum. But that’s how much they’ll each shell out on average for Christmas gifts this year.

That’s roughly the equivalent of three iPhone 5 smartphones, with tax.

Consumers have boosted their holiday spending each year since 2009, when the price tag on Christmas gift-giving plunged to a two-decade low of $616 per person. The $866 figure from 2008 capped a six-year rise, according to an annual poll of more than 1,000 adults by Gallup.

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This time around, nearly nine in 10 shoppers will spend some amount of money on Christmas gifts, according to Gallup. Three in 10 will spend more than $1,000.

The U.S. Postal Service calls the holiday season its “Super Bowl.” The throngs of shoppers that elbow, crash and occasionally pepper-spray their way into retail stores starting on Black Friday give rise to door-buster deals, holiday hiring surges and – once in a while – protests.

The 2012 season will bring “good, though not great, sales for holiday retailers,” according to Gallup. Retail sales over the period will increase 3.5% to 3.7%, Gallup forecasts – a less robust pace than the 5.5% and 5.6% boosts from the last two years but on pace with the decade-long average.

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In the run-up to the Black Friday surge, sales rose 3.5% in October – a dip from the 8.2% lift during the month last year and the 5.3% advance the year before. Superstorm Sandy may have tamped down sales, Gallup said.

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