This city is the ‘Grinchiest’ in Texas, study shows
(NEXSTAR) — The holiday season is in full swing but not every place you go will be as merry as the others. Recently, financial data outlet FinanceBuzz analyzed which U.S. cities have the fewest Christmas events and holiday activities — and one Texas city came out seeing green.
Though last year, San Antonio took the top spot nationally for being the most humbug city, this year, Los Angeles earned the "Grinchiest" title. But many more Texas cities appeared on the outlet's list of Grinchy cities.
To decide the ranking, FinanceBuzz scored the U.S.’ 75 biggest cities based on a wide variety of holiday-themed factors, including holiday shopping data, holiday giving data, Google Trends searches, and more. Cities were given scores out of a 100, with the lowest scoring being considered the “Grinchiest.”
All-in-all, Texas cities appeared on the list's top 20 four times. The only other state with the same amount of "Grinch" cities in the top 20 is California.
| Rank | City | Holiday score (out of 100, with 100 being the best) |
| 4. | Houston | 36.5 |
| 5. | San Antonio | 26.7 |
| 13. | Corpus Christi | 29.9 |
| 18. | Austin | 31.7 |
Per FinanceBuzz's analysis, Houston's biggest dings come from its low share of annual charitable giving — which the outlet says is one of the 10 lowest rates of any U.S. city — and low share of annual volunteer activities, which the outlet says ranks as one of the 20 lowest in the U.S.
Meanwhile, San Antonio lost points due to a relatively low number of holiday events per 100,000 residents, with only about 18.7 per 100K. FinanceBuzz says the average number for cities in the study was about 156 holiday events per 100,000 people.
All-in-all, the Texas city that was found to be the "jolliest" would be Dallas, which earned a score of 42.2, which is still relatively low.
Nationally, Hartford, Connecticut is the jolliest city for the holidays this year. The city earned a holiday score of 76.9, with about 663 holiday events per 100,000 people.