A Christmas Eve birthday is among the rarest dates in these historical U.S. records. December 24 ranks #363 of 366 by total births, where #1 means most common. Christmas Day has fewer births; December 26 has more.
December 24 accounts for 170,166 recorded births from 1994 through 2014: 0.199% of the sample, or about 1 in 504. These counts describe the selected records, not everyone alive with a Christmas Eve birthday.
December 24, beside other birthdays
Average recorded births each time a date occurred, 1994 through 2014.
- Commonness rank
- 363 / 366
- Share of recorded births
- 0.199 %
- Recorded births
- 170,166
Bars start at zero. Rank 1 means most common and uses total births across all 366 dates. The bars use births per actual occurrence; February 29 appeared five times, while the other dates appeared 21 times.
Check December 24 and compare with a friend →Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after
December 24 ranks 30 of 31 within December. Each December date appears equally often in the baseline, so the ranking does not depend on one date having fewer calendar occurrences.
| Date | Recorded births | Commonness rank | Birth share |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 23 | 218,051 | 351 | 0.254% |
| December 24 | 170,166 | 363 | 0.199% |
| December 25 | 138,628 | 365 | 0.162% |
| December 26 | 201,577 | 360 | 0.235% |
| December 31 | 219,101 | 348 | 0.256% |
| January 1 | 164,362 | 364 | 0.192% |
Christmas Eve averaged 8,103.1 births across its 21 actual occurrences. The December guide compares all dates, while the Christmas Day study examines December 25's annual pattern.
Was Christmas Eve low when weekdays matched?
Yes, in every observed SSA year from 2000 through 2014. December 24 was below its eligible nearby same-weekday comparison in all 15 years. Its pooled difference was -28.9%.
| Year | Weekday | Recorded births | Nearby mean | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Sunday | 6,971 | 7,980 | -12.6% |
| 2001 | Monday | 7,626 | 11,439.7 | -33.3% |
| 2002 | Tuesday | 9,131 | 12,967.7 | -29.6% |
| 2003 | Wednesday | 9,272 | 12,911 | -28.2% |
| 2004 | Friday | 7,813 | 12,904.5 | -39.5% |
| 2005 | Saturday | 7,256 | 8,579 | -15.4% |
| 2006 | Sunday | 6,708 | 7,610 | -11.9% |
| 2007 | Monday | 7,727 | 12,438.7 | -37.9% |
| 2008 | Wednesday | 9,235 | 13,277.7 | -30.4% |
| 2009 | Thursday | 8,441 | 12,463.7 | -32.3% |
| 2010 | Friday | 7,532 | 12,590 | -40.2% |
| 2011 | Saturday | 6,688 | 7,878 | -15.1% |
| 2012 | Monday | 7,614 | 11,380.7 | -33.1% |
| 2013 | Tuesday | 9,194 | 12,791.3 | -28.1% |
| 2014 | Wednesday | 9,308 | 12,292.3 | -24.3% |
We use available dates seven and fourteen days away in the same year, excluding the holidays listed below. December 10 and 17 supply the earlier dates. December 31 can supply a later date, except when it is the standard federal New Year's observance. January dates fall outside the target's calendar year and are not used.
That exclusion removes December 31 in 2004 and 2010. The one-week-only result is -29.2%; the two-week-only result is -28.4%. Because we stay within the same calendar year, the comparison does not balance earlier and later dates in every year.
When is Christmas Eve also the observed Christmas holiday?
When December 25 falls on a Saturday, the preceding Friday is usually the Christmas holiday for federal employees on a Monday through Friday schedule. In this SSA window, those Christmas Eve dates were 2004, 2010.
Their combined difference from nearby matched weekdays was -39.8%. In the other 13 years, Christmas Eve's difference was -27.0%.
| Calendar group | Years | Occurrences | Births per occurrence | Control mean | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Target is the federal observed date | 2004, 2010 | 2 | 7,672.5 | 12,747.3 | -39.8% |
| Other years | 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 | 13 | 8,090.1 | 11,077.7 | -27.0% |
The shortfall is present in both groups. The observed-holiday group contains only two events, and federal employee observance rules do not describe every hospital's schedule. The daily-birth files contain no delivery-method or scheduling information, so these figures cannot establish a cause.
See the December 26 study for the other side of Christmas Day. Its observance years are different because a Sunday Christmas moves the standard federal holiday to Monday.
Sources and what the percentages mean
The ranking uses FiveThirtyEight's preserved daily U.S. birth files: CDC/NCHS 1994 through 1999 and SSA 2000 through 2014, with no overlapping years counted twice. Annual comparisons use the single SSA series because the source coverage differs.
For each year, we average the eligible comparison dates, then compare summed target births with summed annual control means. Controls exclude actual and standard observed federal holidays, Christmas Eve, December 26 and the day after Thanksgiving. Exact dates and exclusions are in the date-analysis download.
The methodology explains total-birth ranks and birth shares. To compare December 24 with your own date, open Christmas Eve in the checker.