Best Christmas Songs: Classics, Hits & Carols

The best Christmas songs are the ones that turn an ordinary December evening into something that feels like the holidays, and the short list almost everyone agrees on starts with Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," Wham!'s "Last Christmas," Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," and Bing Crosby's "White Christmas." Below we have sorted the classics the way you actually use them: the modern pop hits that own the charts every December, the traditional carols, the songs made for kids, and the party sing-alongs. Pour the cocoa, pull on a festive sweater, and press play.

The most-streamed modern Christmas hits

A handful of pop songs come back every single year and dominate the streaming charts from late November onward. If you only build one playlist, build it around these.

• "All I Want for Christmas Is You" - Mariah Carey (1994). The defining modern holiday anthem. It returns to the top of the charts every December and has become the unofficial starting gun for the season.
• "Last Christmas" - Wham! (1984). George Michael's bittersweet synth-pop classic, as essential to a December playlist as tinsel is to a tree.
• "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" - Brenda Lee (1958). Recorded when Lee was just 13, this rockabilly favorite is still a number-one regular nearly seventy years later.
• "Santa Tell Me" - Ariana Grande (2014). The newest song to crack the permanent rotation, and proof the canon is still growing.
• "Underneath the Tree" - Kelly Clarkson (2013). A big, brassy, feel-good track built in the spirit of the old Phil Spector holiday records.

Timeless classics and crooner standards

Many of the songs we think of as eternal actually come from a tight window in the 1940s through the 1960s, the golden age of the American holiday standard. These are the warm, orchestral recordings that sound like a fireplace.

• "White Christmas" - Bing Crosby (1947). Written by Irving Berlin and recorded for the film Holiday Inn, Crosby's version is, by Guinness World Records, the best-selling single of all time.
• "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" - Nat King Cole. The quintessential fireside jazz ballad, and the version everyone measures the others against.
• "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" - Judy Garland. Introduced in Meet Me in St. Louis and beloved for its gentle, slightly melancholy comfort.
• "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" - Andy Williams (1963). Pure, bouncing optimism in two and a half minutes.
• "Feliz Navidad" - Jose Feliciano (1970). Often called the first bilingual Christmas hit, written in Los Angeles out of homesickness for Puerto Rico.

Traditional Christmas carols

Before the pop era, the season belonged to carols, many of them centuries old. They are the backbone of every church service, school concert, and caroling night, and they are surprisingly easy to sing together because almost everyone already knows the words.

• "Silent Night." A peaceful church carol that first appeared in Austria in the early nineteenth century and has since been translated into hundreds of languages.
• "O Holy Night." The soaring vocal showcase choirs save for their biggest moment.
• "Jingle Bells," "Deck the Halls," and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." The cheerful, fast singalongs that anyone can join in on.
• "Carol of the Bells" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Dramatic, layered favorites that sound enormous with a full choir.

Christmas songs for kids

If there are little ones in the house, you want the bright, story-driven songs about reindeer, snowmen, and Santa. These are the easiest to act out, and the most fun to play while everyone decorates.

• "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" - Gene Autry. The original telling of the most famous reindeer of all.
• "Frosty the Snowman." A playground favorite with an easy, repeatable chorus.
• "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town." Equal parts warning and delight, depending on how the week has gone.
• "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." The novelty wish-list song kids request on loop.
• "Jingle Bell Rock" - Bobby Helms. Upbeat, simple, and impossible not to bop to.

Party and sing-along songs

For the Christmas party, the office gift exchange, or the family ugly-sweater night, you want the loud, joyful, everyone-knows-it tracks. This is where a matching festive sweater and a shared playlist do most of the work.

Want the whole family in step for the photo? A set of matching family Christmas sweaters turns the singalong into a tradition, and there are kids' Christmas sweaters sized for even the smallest carolers.

A short history of Christmas music

Christmas music splits neatly into two streams. The older one is the carol, a tradition of communal seasonal singing that stretches back centuries and gave us "Silent Night," "O Holy Night," and "Joy to the World." The newer one is the recorded pop standard, which exploded in the United States in the 1940s through the 1960s as crooners like Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Andy Williams turned the holidays into a reliable hit-making season. That is why so many songs that feel timeless actually share the same few decades. The most recent additions, from Mariah Carey to Ariana Grande, prove the genre never really stopped growing. For the full story, the encyclopedic overview of Christmas music traces it from medieval carols to the modern charts.

Build your own Christmas playlist

The best holiday playlist mixes all four streams so the mood can shift through the day: gentle carols and crooner standards in the morning, kids' songs while you decorate, and the loud pop hits once the party starts. Start with the songs above, add the three or four tracks that mean the most to your own family, and you will have a playlist that earns its spot on repeat every December.