This Map Reveals Each State’s Favorite Holiday Cookie

There are many things we love about the holiday season. Being able to indulge in our favorite holiday treats more than we might on any other day is one of the perks. Since holidays are often centered around family and food, we develop preferences in holiday treats – and it’s rare for the top spot favorite to change as we get older. Instagram was interested in finding out more about people’s favorite holiday cookie. They compiled all the data into a handy map.

Christmas and cookies go together like peanut butter and jelly. It’s a tradition that’s pretty universal across the United States. While there is a surprising amount of cookie types that fit the holiday season, there are 8 different cookies that run the country in terms of popularity.

Instagram collected data based on the holiday cookies that were liked and mentioned by each state in both Instagram Feed and Stories over the past month. They took all that information, digested it, sorted through it, and put it into map form, showing the most talked-about cookies in each state.

The country’s top flavors included peanut butter, shortbread, sugar cookies, chocolate chip, gingerbread, snickerdoodle, oatmeal, and crinkle.

Surprisingly, according to the data collected by Instagram, there was a tie for which cookie was best in total. The winning tie went to peanut butter and sugar cookies, which is surprising. Neither are typically tied to the holiday like gingerbread or shortbread are.

Looking at the information down to each state, 10 states talked about peanut butter and sugar cookies more often than any other cookies. In second place came shortbread, with 8 states choosing this as the top holiday cookie. When it came to basic chocolate chip cookies, only one state named that its favorite: Illinois.

Honestly, though, all the cookies that made the top spot in each state are worthy of some holiday indulgence. Grab a glass of milk first!