Christmas Hits for 2025

Exploring the songs that make the season sound like Christmas

A Christmas collage of legends—Mariah Carey’s modern classic, The Beach Boys’ sun-soaked harmonies, and the timeless crooners Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra—together shaping the soundtrack of the season across generations.

Since its immediate success upon release in 1995, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has dominated Christmas music charts. The song holds the record for the largest gap between its release date and its most recent number one spot and is the best-selling Christmas song to date. Despite this song winning every holiday season for the foreseeable future, other modern classics, such as Wham!’s “Last Christmas,” have garnered immense cultural relevance during the holiday season as well.

The 1963 album A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector is an iconic holiday project, featuring The Ronettes’ single “Sleigh Ride” as well as Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” which would later be rerecorded by Mariah Carey. Brenda Lee’s 1958 single “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” recorded when she was only thirteen years old, is another example of a modern holiday classic that reappears each December. The song’s fun, timeless sound continues to be loved by new generations each year.

Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack is pure holiday magic—cool jazz, simple melodies, and warm nostalgia that somehow feels timeless every December.

Traditional carols, such as “O Holy Night,” also hold a special place in Christmas tradition. The carol “Silent Night” is the most recorded Christmas song in history, with over 137,000 known recordings, according to a 2017 article published for 106.5 WYRK by Liz Mantel. While beloved staples and traditional carols make up the bulk of popular Christmas music, new songs are becoming holiday essentials each year.

Despite being more recently released, Kelly Clarkson’s 2013 album Wrapped in Red and Michael Bublé’s 2011 album Christmas have firmly grounded themselves in holiday radio over the past few years. Even songs released less than ten years ago, such as Taylor Swift’s 2019 single “Christmas Tree Farm” or “Santa, Can’t You Hear Me?” (featuring Ariana Grande) from Kelly Clarkson’s 2021 holiday album, have become Christmastime necessities for many. From ancient carols to contemporary pop songs, Christmas music has survived the test of time, and it will forever remain one of the most defining parts of the holiday season.

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