More Canadians are intending to celebrate Valentine’s Day, according to Numerator’s 2025 Canadian Holiday Preview.

The survey of 5,202 consumers was taken in January 2025, and highlights consumers’ celebration, shopping and spending plans for key holidays like Valentine’s Day and a dozen others through the end of the year. The numbers reveal that celebration intentions are 4% higher year-over-year for Valentine’s Day 2025, with 55% of respondents planning something for Feb. 14.

Among the 55%, going out to eat and giving gifts will be the top activities, followed by cooking at home and ordering in.

Roughly half of Valentine’s Day shoppers expect to buy food or gifts this year, two-fifths will purchase candy and a fifth will purchase alcohol. Wine is the most popular alcohol for Valentine’s Day shoppers, followed by beer and champagne.

For Valentine’s Day celebrations, the the top three preferred retail channels are mass (34%), grocery (33%) and dollar (31%).

While dining out over-indexes for Valentine’s Day (40%), Lunar New Year and Diwali are also a popular occasions for visiting restaurants in-person (32% and 28%, respectively).

More than two-thirds of Lunar New Year shoppers expect to purchase food, and a third will purchase alcohol. More than half of shoppers plan to purchase their holiday supplies from grocery stores, followed by specialty or mass retailers.

Other holidays seeing an intent pickup include Canada Day, up 3% to 60%, and New Year’s, up 3% to 70%. Labour Day is up 2% to 34%, while all the other holidays are stable or up slightly.

While consumer plans for St. Patrick’s Day and Canada Day are the most spontaneous (37% report doing things one to two days in advance for St. Paddy’s, 36% for Canada Day), holidays in the final few months of the year get advanced planning, with a third of shoppers planning their Christmas celebrations three or more months ahead of time.

Nine-in-10 celebrators say they’ll make a purchase related to a given holiday. Purchase intentions are lowest for Labour Day, Canada Day and St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day are the lowest spend occasions, with 51% of respondents spending under $50 for St Paddy’s day, and 41% for Valentine’s Day. Spendthrifts, by contrast, gravitate to Christmas and Ramadan where 63% and 52% of respondents, respectively, report that they shell out $200 or more.