Ranks of Vienna, Zurich, Auckland (New Zealand) and Munich in the 2011 quality of living worldwide city rankings by Mercer: 1, 2, 3, 4

Ranks of Honolulu and San Francisco on the list -- the highest-ranking American cities: 29, 30

Source: Mercer.

Percentage of Americans who visit bars who agree a good bartender is more important than how trendy or stylish the decor of the bar is, according to a survey on behalf of Sailor Jerry Rum: 76

Percentage of respondents who tip a bartender more than 15 percent: 74

Percentage who also believe that the better they tip, the better service they will receive: 74

Source: Sailor Jerry Rum.

Percentage of Americans who say that if they earned between $60,000 and $100,000 a year they would consider themselves rich, according to a Gallup poll: 12

Percentage of Americans who say they would need in excess of $1 million in savings in cash, stocks, real estate and other investments in order to consider themselves rich, including 14 percent who say they would need $5 million or more: 26

Source: Gallup.

Percentage of American adults who make one or more resolutions each year, according to author Serge Prengel: 40 to 45

Percentage of respondents who maintain these resolutions past the first week: 75

Percentage who make it past six months: 46

Number of times more likely that people who explicitly make New Year's resolutions are to attain their goals than people who don't explicitly make resolutions: 10

Source: about.com.

Number of mobile applications that are downloaded worldwide each month, according to Mobile Future: 1 billion

Amount of money paid by Apple alone to independent app developers: $3 billion

Source: Mobile Future.

Percentage of Americans who rate themselves an 8, 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 in good looks, according to a LivingSocial survey conducted by Mandala Research: 32

Percentage who say they deserve at least a 7: 56

Percentage of respondents who say people in their city are overweight: 50

Percentage who agree that women in their city are beautiful: 46

Percentage who say that men in their city are handsome: 36

Source: LivingSocial.

Percentage of U.S. adults who have gone shopping or purchased something solely because they were in a bad mood, otherwise known as "retail therapy," according to a CouponCabin.com survey conducted by Harris Interactive: 24

Percentage of women who said they've shopped in pursuit of retail therapy: 31

Percentage of men who said the same: 16

Source: CouponCabin.

Percentage of leading privately held businesses that have made innovation a priority -- 33 percent of them to a great extent and 42 percent to some extent -- according to chief executives surveyed for PricewaterhouseCooper's Private Company Trendsetter Barometer: 75

Percentage of innovation-focused private companies that expect their innovations (ranging from incremental to breakthrough) will have a significant impact on the way they do business over the next one to three years: 47

Source: PwC Private Company Services.

Ranks of Jason Aldean's "Dirt Road Anthem," Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" and Eric Church's "Smoke a Little Smoke" on the list of the top played songs of 2011, according to TouchTunes Interactive Networks: 1, 2, 3

Ranks of Kid Rock, AC/DC and Jason Aldean on the list of the top artists 2011: 1, 2, 3

Source: TouchTunes Interactive Networks.

Increase (to 64.8 points) in the Country Financial Security Index in December, showing Americans' confidence in both their ability to pay debts and their overall financial state: 1.6

Percentage of respondents who say 2012 will be better than 2011: 30

Ranks of reducing debt (27 percent) and boosting savings (19 percent) on the list of the top 2012 personal priorities for Americans: 1, 2

Source: Country Financial.

Idle Thought

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials." -- Lin Yutang, writer and translator

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

Ranks of "getting caught up in the holiday spirit," "love" and "simply not thinking about how much is being spent" on the list of primary reasons for exceeding a personal holiday spending limit, according to a TD Bank poll: 1, 2, 3

Percentage of shoppers who said they used credit cards to pay for gifts this year: 38

Percentage who will use debit cards: 31

Source: TD Bank.

Percentage of people who say relatives overstay their welcome after a day or less, with some saying their family members wear out their welcome as soon as they arrive, according to a special edition of the HomeAway Vacation Rental Marketplace Report: 22

Percentage who say relatives overstay their welcome after just a few days: 29

Percentage who say their relatives never wear out their welcome: 37

Source: HomeAway.

Percentage of people who selected "dog or other pet" as the most normal member of their family, according to a poll conducted by the Social Beat Research Group: 76

Percentage who picked "me" -- a distant second place, and likely the response of someone without pets: 12

Source: TMarkTees.com.

Day that the U.S. Postal Service says is traditionally the heaviest mailing day of the year, about a 40 percent rise from the normal daily volume, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: Dec. 14

While the holiday season easily produces the heaviest volume, estimated number of pieces of mail the Postal Sevice delivers annually: 170.5 billion

Number of employees it takes to handle this astounding volume: 672,000

Number of postal facilities around the country: 27,000

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Percentage of American children who reach the age of 17 with both their biological parents married (since before or around the time of their birth), according to Family Research Council's Marriage and Religion Research Institute in its second annual Index of Family Belonging and Rejection: 45.8

Source: Family Research Council.

Percentage of women who say the economy has helped them focus on what's important during the holidays, according to an American Red Cross poll: 66

Percentage of men who say the same: 49

Percentage of women who say they feel badly they can't give more to charity this year, compared to 51 percent of men: 71

Source: American Red Cross.

Ranks of spend more time with family and friends, fitness, tame the bulge, quit smoking, enjoy life more, quit drinking, get out of debt, learn something new, help others, get organized on the top 10 list of New Year's resolutions, according to Albrecht Powell, About.com Guide: 1 to 10

Source: About.com.

Ranks of Sophia, Emma, Isabella, Olivia and Ava on the list of the most popular girls names of 2011, according to BabyCenter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Ranks of Aiden, Jackson, Mason, Liam and Jacob on the list of the most popular boys names of 2011: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Source: BabyCenter.

Number of paid vacation days the average American employee has left unused at the end of each year, according to results of the American Travel Behavior Survey, conducted by Harris Interactive: 6.2

During the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2010, the average percentage drop in hotel prices on Hotwire.com vs. the peak summer months: 10

When compared to the peak season, percentage drop in airfares during the first weeks of December 2010: 9

When compared to the peak season, percentage drop in car rental prices during the first weeks of December 2010: 23

Source: Hotwire.com.

Year that Christmas Seals first appeared in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 1907

Amount of money expected to be raised at the time by selling special stamps designed by Emily Bissell to put on Christmas mailings, with the profits helping in the fight against tuberculosis, then the nation's No. 1 killer: $300

Estimated amount actually raised: $3,000

Amount raised the following year, 1908: $135,000

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Idle Thought

"The path of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked." -- Napoleon Hill

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

Rank of innocent and friendly gift exchanges like "Yankee Swap" and "Secret Santa" on the list of the most likely areas for regifting, according to a study for national off-price home fashions retailer HomeGoods: 1

Whether guilty or not, percentage of suspected regifts that come from co-workers: 46

Percentage that come from friends: 21

Source: HomeGoods.

Though 67 percent of Americans didn't think the economic downturn would last this long, percentage of respondents who still want to give to charities and expect to donate more or about the same this holiday season as they did last year, according to an American Red Cross poll: 70

Percentage of Americans who believe that because of the economy, it's important to give something to charity (an increase of 10 percentage points over last year): 68

Source: American Red Cross.

Percentage of parents who have procrastinated with their holiday to-do lists, who say that they have had to run errands in the middle of the night to get ready for Christmas morning: 32

Percentage of parents who report that they have not been able to buy the toy their child(ren) wanted for the holidays because they procrastinated in getting their holiday shopping done: 23

Percentage of parents who say that it is important to them to create a memorable Christmas for their children: 89

Source: Ipsos Public Affairs.

If one were to assume that Santa works in the realm of standard time, estimated length of time he would be able to spend per home, according to NORAD: 2 to 3 ten-thousandths of a second

Length of time his Christmas Eve trip may seem to us to take, but to Santa it may last days, weeks or even months in time because he functions within a different time-space continuum than the rest of us do: 24 hours

Estimated age of Santa Claus: 16,000 years

Source: NORAD.

Year that the first tree debuted at Rockefeller Center -- standing 20 feet tall and erected by construction workers eager to receive a day's pay in the depths of the Depression, according to Time Magazine: 1931

Height of the 2011 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree: 74 feet

Weight: 10 tons

Age of the Norway spruce tree: 75 years

Source: Time Magazine.

Compared to last year, percentage increase in the price index in the whimsical economic analysis by PNC Wealth Management based on the prices of gifts in the holiday classic "The Twelve Days of Christmas": 3.5

According to the 27th annual survey, current price tag for these gifts: $24,263.18

Cost if you want to buy the whole shebang from a single partridge to twelve drummers drumming for each verse (that's 364 separate pieces of Christmas joy): $101,119.84

Source: PNC Wealth Management.

Average amount of time women spend cleaning their homes each week, according to a national survey conducted by StrategyOne and commissioned by Georgia-Pacific: 116 minutes

Amount of cleaning time that at-home Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers can add to that, including time spent before and after parties: 4 hours (240 minutes)

Whether messes are caused by an overflow of sweet potato casserole or puddles of spilled gravy, ranks of Christmas (57.3 percent), Thanksgiving (32.5 percent) and New Year's (3.4 percent) on the list of the messiest holidays: 1, 2, 3

Source: StrategyOne.

Value of U.S. imports of Christmas tree ornaments from China between January and September 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: $983 million

Value of U.S. imports of artificial Christmas trees shipped to the United States from China during the same period: $79.7 million

Value of U.S. toy imports -- including stuffed toys (including dolls), puzzles and electric trains -- from China between January and September 2011: $2.5 billion

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Percentage of Americans who plan to travel this holiday season, according to the results of the annual TripAdvisor December holiday travel survey: 43

Percentage of travelers who think travelers, in general, behave with worse manners toward one another than usual during the "season of good will": 23

Despite the current economic climate, percentage of respondents who say the economy has not impacted their December holiday travel plans: 76

Source: TripAdvisor.

Year from which the first written record comes of a decorated Christmas tree in Riga, Latvia, according to History.com's Christmas section: 1510

Year from which a record from Alsace, France, states that trees were sold in the marketplace and brought home and set up undecorated -- laws limiting the size to "8 shoe lengths" (slightly more than 4 feet): 1530

Period it became common in Germany to decorate Christmas trees with apples: 1600s

Source: History.com.

Idle Thought

"Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit." -- Elbert Hubbard, author, editor and printer (1856-1915)

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)