Eighteen percent said they were also more likely to help the needy during the festive season as a result of devastating events over the past 12 months -- with six percent saying they had already done so.

The YouGov survey of 2,013 adults was conducted for Crisis, a homeless charity that will set up a shelter in London's Docklands financial district to welcome the capital's neediest between Christmas and the New Year.

Scots, with 68 percent, were the group whose attitude to Christmas had changed the most, according to the poll, followed by people in northern England (65 percent), the south (63 percent), those in the Midlands and Wales (62 percent) and Londoners (61 percent).

Some 217,000 people died on December 26 last year in the Indian Ocean tsunami, one of the biggest natural disasters in living memory, while 56 people were killed -- including four apparent suicide bombers -- in the July 7 blasts in London.

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