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A few days of festive Christmas cheer helps to alleviate the winter blues brought on by the colder darker months, data which tracks the nation’s mood has suggested.

YouGov’s weekly happiness tracker, which has collected data from summer 2019 to now, shows that people really are hit by seasonal sadness as the days grow shorter.

People in Britain are 5.2 per cent less happy, on average, in the winter compared with the summer, The Times reported.

However a few days of festive merriment puts a temporary halt to the state of melancholy, boosting the nation’s mood by as much as 10 per cent.

45 per cent of people said they were happy over winter last year, but that jumped to 54 per cent over the two-week Christmas period.

Skaters in festive fancy dress, some as Santa or Father Christmas, attend a Christmas-themed SantaSkate through central London, on Oxford Street, on December 14, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)

A dachshund wearing a festive coat takes part in the Christmas Hyde Park Sausage Walk in Hyde Park, central London (AFP via Getty Images)

Overall Brits are much happier in summer, where 50 per cent reported being happy. The difference between happiness in summer and winter was, on average, 5.2 per cent.

People are 7.8 per cent more happy in Christmas, compared to the rest of winter, according to YouGov’s data.

YouGov’s weekly survey also tracks how bored, lonely, stressed, inspired, optimistic and content people say they are.

In recent years, the height of boredom has been in March 2020, when the first lockdown was announced, and January 2021, when another lockdown was put in place.

For the first time in 900 years, girls join choristers as they take part in a photocall at St Paul's Cathedral — For the first time in 900 years, girls join choristers as they take part in a photocall at St Paul’s Cathedral (Getty Images)

King Charles III records his Christmas message at the Fitzrovia Chapel (Getty Images)

Stress has hovered around 40 per cent for the past five years, but there was a jump to 47 per cent in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic lockdowns. People reporting that they felt scared also dramatically increased around that time, jumping from 10 per cent to 28 per cent on the 23 March 2020.

Loneliness also peaked at 21 per cent in January 2021.

Matthew Smith, the head of data journalism at YouGov, told The Times: “If you’re looking at other [moods on the tracker], you’ve obviously got ‘scared’ showing a big change around the time of Covid, and then also the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s very clear that at Christmas there is a spike in happiness and an equivalent dip in stress and frustration.”

However he qualified the boost, saying: “Happiness doesn’t necessarily spike until after Christmas. That’s the period when most people are actually off. It does seem to be that each year post-Christmas is when people have started to feel a lot better, rather than Christmas itself.”

A boy pictured at the annual Christmas Eve meat sale at Smithfield Market on December 24, 2024 in London, England. (Getty Images)

A child looks at a house decorated with Christmas lights in North London (AFP via Getty Images)

YouGov has also surveyed people to find out what they like most about Christmas, with the most common answer being spending time with loved ones at 35 per cent.

Nine per cent of people said that food and drink was their favourite thing about Christmas, and eight per cent chose goodwill and festive cheer.

10 per cent said that their favourite thing about the holiday was having time off, and 12 per cent said they don’t like anything about Christmas at all.

When asked what they don’t like about the festivities, one in five Britons said that Christmas was being too commercialised, and one in six highlighted the cost of the holiday.

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