Top 5 Christmas Songs
1) O Holy Night
2) Jingle Bells
3) White Christmas
4) Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer
5) Little Drummer Boy
NOTE: While I understand a few of these songs are inexorably linked to the artist who sings them I’m trying to keep this list to the song itself.
Posted on December 19, 2006, in Holidays, Music, Top 5s. Bookmark the permalink. 33 Comments.
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Where’s the Carol of the Bells? That’s got to be number one. Does Handel’s Messiah count? Because that should be number two.
I hate the little drummer boy. Ba-rump-bump-bump this!
Oh, yeah, Carol of the Bells is amazing. I totally forgot that one. That would probably go in at number two or three and push Drummer Boy out.
I’m also partial toward “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
I have to say, even though I’m not religious, I much prefer the “carols” to the Christmas “songs.”
The Lite FM I have to listen to at work has exclusively songs like “Dominic the Christmas Donkey” and abominations like that.
“Baby It’s Cold Outside”
O Come Emmanuel
Come Thou Font of Every Blessing
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Away in a Manger
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
I heard the Bells on Christmas Day
O Holy Night
Silent Night
Blue Christmas
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
‘We Three Kings..” is a close six.
Blue Christmas
Angels We Have Heard on High
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Carol of the Bells
O Holy Night
Winter Wonderland
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Jingle Bells
Blue Christmas
“holy infant, so tender and mild” gives me the heebee jeebees. It sounds like the singer is advertising a meal deal.
Was it blue christmas that Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Brad Hall sang as “The Osmonds” in Gumby’s Christmas Special (SNL)?
Down with colorful Christmases–blue, white or whatever. And Silver Bells–including versions not mangled by Kathie Lee.
Does Linus and Lucy count since it’s on A Charlie Brown Christmas?
Otherwise, I’m with Ned. Carols, not “songs.”
No amor for Feliz Navidad?
I recently attended Songs of Good Cheer, a community Christmas carol singing party at the Old Town School of Folk Music sponsored by the Chicago Tribune. I’ve been every year (eight in all).
They do lots of polling of favorite Christmas songs. Little Drummer Boy is almost universally despised.
Here in Chicago we have a radio station that from before Thanksgiving has been playing all Christmas music all the time (WLIT). Now, I love Christmas music. But if you’re going to do a format like that you need to stock up on your supply. It seems like they play the same ten songs over and over again. Almost every time I flip to it they are playing Feliz Navidad, for example. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that sappy “A Soldier’s Silent Night.” So if I’m going to be driving anywhere further than the train station, I just plug in my iPod and play my own stash.
Long Way Around the Sea by Low.
This is why I love “Little Drummer Boy.”
I have to separate secular from sacred, sorry.
Secular
1. White Christmas
2. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
3. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting…)
4. Santa Claus is coming to town
5. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Sacred
1. O Come, All Ye Faithful
2. O Holy Night
3. The First Noel
4. Away In A Manger
5. O come, O come, Emmanuel
The Messiah… is really for Easter.
Come Thy Font of Every Blessing
O Holy Night
Angels We Have Heard On High
God Rest Ye Mary Gentlemen
Away in a Manger
“Silent Night” is my favorite.
My favorite Christmas song version find this year was Jethro Tull’s instrumental version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
Very nice, Rusty.
I would add “I Saw Three Ships” and “Silver Bells.” The former is my absolute favorite Christmas song.
Also, anything by Gary Hoey is worth a listen (here and here)!
Sorry folks, Come thou fount of every blessing is not a Christmas song.
Messiah was first performed at Easter, but part I is certainly on a Christmas theme.
My choices:
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
What child is this?
In the bleak midwinter
O come, all ye faithful
Joy to the World
My vote for most overrated:
O Holy Night
I agree with Susan, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” has to be on the list. I’d probably want “Let It Snow” on there as well. While I love Rudolf, it just isn’t a top 5. Ditto with Drummer Boy.
I can’t believe that “Please Daddy Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas” didn’t make anyone’s list!
Says who?
Another good one:
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight) by the Ramones.
Tracy, I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but if it’s my statement on Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, then I will assemble as evidence the opinions of hymnbook editors; I have never seen a hymnbook of any demonination that listed it in the Christmas section. The text has nothing remotely to do with Christmas. I have never heard it at a Christmas concert. It is a Christmas hymn only insofar as any hymn that talks about Christ is a Christmas hymn, in which case the distinction is meaningless.
Well, it’s my favorite hymn, and like a petulant child, I will insist on it at Christmas.
But thanks for the clarification!
Bill, agreed that it’s not a particularly Christmas-y song, but for some reason it crops up every December.
I think SG and Tracy are just falling for Sufjan Stevens’ head fake regarding “Come Thou Font (sic) of Every Blessing,” which appeared on his Christmas album.
I love the song, especially Sufjan’s banjo accompaniment, but it’s not a Christmas song.
I’ll adopt Bill’s selections as my own, except for the one that I don’t know. Substitute “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” maybe.
Also, I have an almost pathological dislike for “The First Noel.” Sorry.
I think “O Holy Night” is generally overrated (and often overblown in performances) and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is generally underrated. Props to SG for putting it as his #1 though.
(Oh, I just noticed Bill (#19) agrees with me on the first part…)
Another one I like that nobody mention (and I haven’t heard much recently) is Good King Wenceslas.
I’m not much of a Christmas music person, but I really like “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy” by Buck Owens.
It’s almost impossible to be objective with such an array of tunes to choose from with such a mixture of motives for making such choices. For example, if “Silent Night” were anything but a christmas song I wouldn’t think much of it. But as such I can’t live without it being part of the christmas canon. On the other hand, what about a tune like “Sleigh Ride?” Such a cool tune–the first one I start humming when the first vestiges of christmas begin to appear early in the season. But it isn’t quite so dear to us–collectively–as (say) “The Christmas Song.”
That said, I do draw a line at whatever that horrendous song is–you know, the one about the kid in the checkout line who didn’t have enough money to buy new shoes for his dying mother… Gag.
Cheers!!! Christmas is not complete without its authentic touch… I have a good collection of christmas country music. Hope you will enjoy it as much as I do….
looking for wlit christmas cd’s i have 2008, and 2009 looking for pass cds thanks, jan please let me know where i can buy them there very hard to find them i will pay for them as a collection.