Thanksgiving Day marked the start of the "engagement season," a romantic time of the year that stretches all the way to Valentine's Day. The period accounts for 23% of the calendar, but proudly claims about 40% of all marriage proposals.

According to WeddingWire.com, Christmas Day is the most popular day to get engaged, followed by Valentine's Day, Christmas Eve and New Year's Day.

These statistics are affirmed — in a slightly different order — by Facebook, whose 2 billion-plus active users (yes, that’s billion with a “b”) love to report their “relationship status.” Facebook rates Christmas Eve as the #1 time to pop the question, followed by Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Valentine's Day.

Facebook has previously reported that about 2.5 million of its 214 million U.S. users change their status to “engaged” in an average year. WeddingWire.com reports that 18% of all marriage proposals take place during the festive month of December.

There’s a very good chance that somebody in your Facebook world will be changing his or her relationship status from “in a relationship” to “engaged” in the near future. There’s sure to be an engagement ring selfie captioned with a romantic note colorfully tagged by a string of engagement ring, diamond and heart-shaped emojis.

Experts believe that the winter engagement phenomenon is attributed to two factors: the romantic nature of the season… and convenience. Suitors likely choose December to pop the question because they love the magic of the holiday season. And, certainly, there’s no better time to propose than when all the family is in town to celebrate with the newly engaged couple.

Here are the Top 10 days of the year to get engaged, according to WeddingWire.com.

#1. Christmas Day. It's the biggest day of the year for gift-giving, so it makes perfect sense that this, too, would be the biggest day to give the ultimate gift — a diamond engagement ring.
#2. Valentine's Day.
#3. Christmas Eve.
#4. New Year's Day.
#5. New Year's Eve.
#6. Day Before Valentine's Day. We wonder if this day cracked the Top 10 because getting engaged on Valentine's Day may be too obvious, so jumping the gun by 24 hours may be a strategy to preserve the element of surprise.
#7. Saturday Before Christmas Eve.
#8. Two Saturdays Before Christmas Eve.
#9. December 23rd (Day Before Christmas Eve).
#10 Fourth of July (Independence Day). It's fun, festive, patriotic and the only date in the Top 10 list that finds itself outside of "engagement season."

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