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    Shopping spree!

    3 Houston suburbs lead sleigh full of cities with biggest holiday budgets

    John Egan
    Nov 26, 2021 | 9:35 am
    The Woodlands Holiday Market
    Folks in The Woodlands spend big bucks on the holidays.
    Visit Houston Texas

    If you live in The Woodlands, Sugar Land, or League City, you may be making a holiday shopping list as long as a stocking and checking it more than twice.

    These three Houston suburbs rank among the 10 U.S. cities with the fattest holiday budgets, according to a new study from personal finance website WalletHub.

    The Woodlands ranks third nationally, at $3,073, while Sugar Land comes in fourth ($3,023) and League City lands at No. 10 ($2,778). Pearland ranks 13th ($2,669) and Missouri City appears at No. 80 ($1,499), while Houston ranks 372nd ($783).

    “To help consumers avoid post-holiday regret, WalletHub calculated the maximum holiday budget for each of 570 U.S. cities using five key characteristics of the population, such as income, age, and savings-to-monthly expenses ratio,” the website says.

    A suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth wraps up the No. 1 spot on the national list. Flower Mound, according to WalletHub, boasts the most Santa-friendly budget among all the cities: $3,427. Flower Mound ranked second last year ($2,973) and third in 2019 ($2,937).

    Seven other DFW cities unwrap rankings in the top 100:

    • Allen, No. 12, $2,688.
    • Frisco, No. 30, $2,133.
    • Plano, No. 33, $2,044.
    • Richardson, No. 43, $1,857.
    • Carrollton, No. 56, $1,698.
    • North Richland Hills, No. 76, $1,544.
    • Irving, No. 89, $1,439.

    The two biggest cities in North Texas are on the Scrooge-y side: Fort Worth appears at No. 257 ($920), and Dallas ranks 365th ($787).

    In the Austin area, the holiday budgets are more on the lean side, like Santa on a diet:

    • Cedar Park, No. 48, $1,770.
    • Round Rock, No. 134, $1,200.
    • Austin, No. 188, $1,049.

    Meanwhile, the San Antonio area’s two entrants on the list feel like they’ve earned lumps of coal:

    • New Braunfels, No. 196, $1,034.
    • San Antonio, No. 371, $783.

    “In general, consumers are ready to spend and to have social experiences both within and outside the home. This spurs consumption in multiple categories, including food, décor, apparel, and gifts. This trend toward increased spending is mitigated by lingering COVID health concerns, including reticence to shop in physical stores, gather in groups, and travel,” Barbara Stewart, interim chair of the University of Houston’s Department of Human Development and Consumer Sciences, tells WalletHub.

    The National Retail Federation predicts a record-shattering holiday season for retail sales, growing between 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent over 2020 to between $843.4 billion and $859 billion. Meanwhile, professional services firm Deloitte envisions a 7 percent to 9 percent spike in holiday spending this year versus last year. Commercial estate services provider pegs the projected increase at 8.4 percent.

    “The outlook for the holiday season looks very bright,” says Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist at the National Retail Federation. “The unusual and beneficial position we find ourselves in is that households have increased spending vigorously throughout most of 2021 and remain with plenty of holiday purchasing power.”

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    news/city-life

    This Week's Hot Headlines

    Sudden shutter of Killen's Barbecue leads our top 5 Houston stories

    CultureMap Staff
    Dec 6, 2025 | 11:00 am
    Killen's barbecue meat platter with sides
    Photo by Robert Jacob Lerma
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    Editor's note: It's time to look back at the top Houston news of the week, including a sudden shutter and our favorite dishes of the month. Catch up on our most popular stories below, then plan your weekend right here.

    1. Exclusive: Killen's Barbecue will soon shutter in The Woodlands. Killen’s Barbecue’s location in The Woodlands closed for good on Thursday, December 4, just a few days after the shutter was announced.

    2. 2-acre Houston patio bar rebrands with new name and family-friendly menu. A bar in Houston’s Near Northside neighborhood is switching things up with a new name and revised menu. Effective immediately, Woodland Social is now known as White Oak Social.

    3. 2 Houston suburbs named top-10 best Texas cities to move to. Several Houston neighbors have been deemed the best Texas cities to move to, with two local suburbs placing in the top 10.

    4. CultureMap editor's 10 favorite dishes at Houston restaurants in November. November’s dining adventures consisted of a couple of new restaurants; an upscale, contemporary Chinese restaurant in River Oaks; an ambitious neighborhood eatery in Garden Oaks; and a buzzy barbecue spot on the border of Conroe and The Woodlands. Here are Eric Sandler's favorite dishes.

    Lazy Lane birria beef paccheri Lazy Lane is already winning fans in Garden Oaks. Photo by Eric Sandler

    5. Astros and Rockets finally launch streaming service for Houston sports fans. Houston sports fans finally have a way to watch their favorite teams without a cable or satellite subscription.


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    news/city-life
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