New ranking puts Atlanta among the best places to celebrate Christmas

If you’re not able to get away for the holidays this season, there’s no need to fret.

According to a new ranking, Atlanta is among the top 20 best places to celebrate Christmas.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the continuing coronavirus pandemic, there are still ways to ring in the festivities of the season. Personal finance website WalletHub sought out to determine where the best places are to revel in the holidays.

To do that, the website compared the 100 largest cities in the country based on 15 relevant metrics that showed this Christmas will be a safe and affordable one. The data set included COVID-19 cases, or safety, traditions and food, observance and the general generosity of the city.

“Finally, we determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order our sample,” WalletHub explained in their methodology. “In determining our sample, we considered only the city proper in each case, excluding cities in the surrounding metro area. For metrics marked with an asterisk (*), we used the square root of the population to calculate the population size in order to avoid overcompensating for minor differences across cities.”

Metrics marked with an asterisk included tree farms per capita and bakeries per capita.

Atlanta ranked at No. 13 with a total score of 62.37. The Peach State’s capital city had the lowest safety score in the top 20 at 43, which reflects the average number of COVID-19 deaths and COVID-19 cases in the past week per capita. However, Atlanta ranked among the top for generosity, coming in at No. 4.

Aside from the four key dimensions, Atlanta also has the highest average wine price, making it among the worst cities to purchase vino for holiday celebrations. However, Atlanta is among the cities with the most food banks per capita, tying with Las Vegas, Seattle and Tampa, Florida for the No. 1 spot.

See below for WalletHub’s list of the top 20 best places for Christmas in 2020.

Best Places for Christmas