68
Parents are apparently setting the gift bar “low” this year: This percent expects no presents at all from their kids, according to LendingTree’s 2017 Holiday Shopping Survey. As you might suspect, the opposite doesn’t hold true: About 80 percent plan to drop $100 per child – and, for 37 percent, the bill will be $250.
3.2 million
Drum roll: That’s how many times Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” has been downloaded as of last year, making it the top-selling modern holiday single, Billboard reports. Love it or loathe it, the 1994 earworm smoked runners-up “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” from Frozen and “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
42
“Make me laugh!” This percent of U.S. kids ages 6-17 has that criteria when it comes to the kinds of books they want to read, Scholastic’s Kids & Family Reading Report says. They also want a good story, to “think and feel” and to get inspired. Find great holiday gift books for kids at bit.ly/Scholastic2017GiftGuide.
$7
Donate this to Southfield-based World Medical Relief, Inc. to buy a twin blanket – or a crib blanket for $5. The nonprofit, which is 4-star rated by Charity Navigator, is facing a major shortage due to demand from natural disasters that have impacted the country this year. They’re about 10,000 blankets light; 90 percent of those go to 60-70 shelters here in metro Detroit. Help them out at worldmedicalrelief.org.
355.9
Imagine this many inches of snow – just shy of 30 feet. The record-setting dump happened over the course of winter of 1978-79 up in Houghton County, the tippy region of the Upper Peninsula, Michigan Tech notes. Last year, by comparison, the area got a puny 180 inches. Chew on that next time we get a “dusting” here in metro Detroit.
