According to a recent YouGov Sixth Sense report on Christmas spending, the average UK household will spend £835 celebrating Christmas this year. This is down slightly from last year, when the average per-household spend was £865.

James McCoy, YouGov SixthSense research director said: “Considering the ongoing economic uncertainty, it is no surprise that UK households are scaling back their Christmas spending this year.

“That aside they are still set to spend £22bn on gifts, decorations, and food and drink, which is a pretty remarkable sum and shows that Brits are determined not to let the recession dampen their Christmas celebrations too much.”

The biggest dent to the household budget this Christmas will be gifts for friends and family (£634), followed by food and drink (£161), and cards, trees and decorations (£40).

The top three categories of Christmas gifts for UK consumers are books, clothing and music/DVDs.

However, households are expected to cut back on food and drink, with the average bill being 8.74% less than last year.

McCoy added: “One interesting finding of this report that will likely be of concern to grocery retailers is that households are expected to scale back their food and drink spend by nearly 9% from last year.”