IT'S THE BATTLE FOR THE ABSOLUTE CHRISTMASIEST CHRISTMAS SONG
Jingle all the way to THE Christmasiest Christmas song! We’ve analysed the top 100 most popular Christmas songs to crown the musical king or queen of Christmas. Through detailed text analysis, we’ve identified the crème-dela-crème of Christmas words and are putting our most-loved Christmas songs to the test in 7 rounds of festive knockouts!
Are you ready to fa-la-la-la-ind out who has the most Christmassy Christmas song?
SPOILER ALERT - CLICK HERE FOR SUMMARY
Our data elves tested the top 100 most popular Christmas songs against the most used Christmas terms within their lyrics. Through festive text analysis, we discovered which Christmas terms are most frequently used and selected these for our knockout rounds:
As the rounds continued, we reviewed which Christmas terms still appeared in the Christmas songs remaining; despite Christmas terms ‘bells’ (78) and ‘jingle’ (56) scoring highly, all songs using these terms were eliminated in earlier rounds – the knockout keeps us on our toes! See the top 50 appearing words at the bottom of the page.
THE 100 MOST POPULAR CHRISTMAS SONGS
Is Bing your Christmas King? Will Sinatra sleigh his way to success? Is victory all Mariah Carey wants for Christmas?
Reveal the Christmas winner in the FINAL ROUND BELOW!
ROUND 1 - THE 100 MOST POPULAR CHRISTMAS SONGS (Click to Open / Close)

The main focus for these festive tunes, ROUND 1 sees us knocking out any songs which don’t have ‘Christmas’ in the lyrics – err are they writing for the right season if they don’t!? ‘Christmas’ was top of the shop for most frequently used Christmas terms in our text analysis, appearing a whopping 581 times across the top 100 songs, suggesting that it should appear five times in each song, right? WRONG – say goodbye to 26 Christmas ditties that don’t even include the main word. Shocker.
This cull includes Bing Crosby classics “Silent Night” and “Little Drummer Boy” – looks like the proclaimed king of Christmas is missing a trick after all? We also say tatty-bye to “Santa Clause Is Coming To Town”, “Deck The Halls” and “Winter Wonderland”. Did your favourite Christmas song make the cut?
ROUND 2 - THOSE WITH 'CHRISTMAS' IN THE LYRICS (Click to Open / Close)




All things merry and bright! ROUND 3 brings us the next most popular Christmas term ‘merry’ with 175 appearances across the top 100 Christmas songs, we put the remaining songs to the ‘merry’ test and revealed that only 26 of our favourite Christmas records use the top two Christmas terms.
The Pogues controversial “Fairy Tale of New York” was one of the tunes to fall off the list. This truly unique Christmas song reached number two in the official charts when released in 1987, but it’s still causing headlines today as Radio 1 took the stance to not play the original version because of its offensive language. So, how many naughty words does this sordid festive ‘ballad’ use?
ROUND 3 - THOSE WITH 'MERRY' IN THE LYRICS (Click to Open / Close)



Ho ho ho – in at ROUND 4 is St Nick A.K.A ‘Santa’. This festive term appears 121 times across the top 100 songs, but of the remaining Absolute Christmasiest Christmas Song knockout remainders, ‘Santa’ appears just 12 times! This stage more than halves our knockout list and takes us a big leap forward to crowing our most Christmassy record! Who’s made the cut?
ROUND 4 - THOSE WITH 'SANTA' IN THE LYRICS (Click to Open / Close)



Love is in the air at ROUND 5, perhaps the most poignant Christmas term and the true meaning of the season. Most Christmas songs reference or invoke the feeling of love but which of our remaining songs include the actual word? ‘Love’ proved a big hitter across the top 100 songs with 116 references across our favourite festive songs – how will our knockout songs fair?
ROUND 5 - THOSE WITH 'LOVE' IN THE LYRICS (Click to Open / Close)


SONG ERAS FROM OUR TOP 100


ROUND 6 and we snowball into our top four most Christmassy Christmas songs based off the most festive words. The Christmas term ‘snow’ knocks out festive favourite “Here Comes Santa Claus” and leaves us with the top four most Christmassy Christmas songs. Interestingly, three of the four tunes are from groups and bands rather than individual artists.
ROUND 6 - THOSE WITH 'SNOW' IN THE LYRICS (Click to Open / Close)



Things are hotting up as we’re down do our final head to head! ROUND 7 brings us ‘baby’, a romantic term which appears 81 times across the top 100 songs, but which of our final knockout songs include ‘baby’? Click the drop-down to reveal an artist who isn’t a stranger to the term ‘baby’ and an 80’s rock’n’roll group who are the kings of cool…
ROUND 7 - THOSE WITH 'BABY' IN THE LYRICS (Click to Open / Close)




Can we Bel-ieb it!? Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe” is crowned The Absolute Christmasiest Christmas Song!
Did we expect this modern popstar to steal the crown as the king of Christmas!? Bieber’s 2011 chart-topping festive song “Mistletoe” is jam-packed with the top festive words! If this was an SEO review, we’d be praising his song writing for keyword gap tracking!
With 329,982,657 total streams, Bieber sure knows how to get us in the Christmas spirit with all our top Christmas terms featured in his popular Christmas record. Perhaps this is a sign of clever modern-day lyric writing, or maybe Bieber just oozes Christmas spirit – what do you think!? Tell us on Twitter @AbsoluteDMedia
If you want to test which of the top 100 Christmas songs you think are the best, head to our Spotify playlist where we’ve delivered you the run-down of the most Christmassy Christmas songs! Get those festive tunes spinning and have yourself a very Merry Christmas!
WORD ANALYSIS DATA
Christmas (581) oh (282) la (245) merry (175) it’s (172) time (137) day (126) ho (124) Santa (121) year (118) love (116) come (96) just (89) snow (82) baby (81) bells (78) home (75) wish (75) da (66) make (66) tree (66) I’ll (65) night (64) pum (63) like (60) Santa’s (60) you’re (60) want (59) I’m (57) jingle (56) say (56) say (56) let (55) cause (53) mistletoe (53) that’s (52) world (52) away (51) hear (51) know (51) Claus (50) ding (50) got (50) gonna (48) happy (48) won’t (47) good (46) sing (45) heart (42) stay (42) ring (40)
WEIRD WORDS QUIZ
Hippopotamus – I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas – Gayla Peevey
Cactus – You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch – Thurl Ravenscroft
Tongue – The Millennium Prayer – Cliff Richard
Corncob – Frosty The Snowman – The Ronettes
Poison – Christmas Lights – Coldplay