Well over five million people have already taken on debt to pay for the cost of Christmas this year, research from R3 indicates.

R3, the insolvency trade body, asked GfK NOP to survey 1001 adults online at the start of December, and found out that an estimated 5,866,637 have already got into debt for this year’s festivities – an increase of almost 50% on last year’s figure. Fully 43% of those people are in the 16-34 age group.

“I am concerned that such large numbers are borrowing money or will be left struggling after Christmas has finished,” said R3 President Steven Law. “With the VAT rise in January making spending more expensive, this will not give many a good start to 2011. It is worrying that younger generations, with perhaps generous motives, are saddling themselves with debts which can become a ‘way of life’.”

Around a quarter of the borrowers reckon it’ll take them two months or longer to repay their Christmas debt, while more than a million say it’ll take them over half a year.

This March, Mr Law continued, R3 found that a third of insolvencies – bankruptcies, IVAs (Individual Voluntary Arrangements), Trust Deeds and DROs (Debt Relief Orders) – were the result of Christmas spending. He said that he was concerned that “this trend may well be repeated in 2011″.