The Most Popular Christmas Songs in Each State [2022]

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We found which holiday song is most popular in every state in the country.
Updated April 3, 2023
Christmas lights seen out of focus.

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Christmas music is part of holiday business for retailers. After all, the songs include dozens of classics that most people have heard every winter for their entire lives. Sentimental, sure, but also a tactic to get people to spend more money in stores.

To get a better sense of which songs are most and least likely to brighten shoppers’ moods, FinanceBuzz used Google Trends to find the most popular Christmas song in every state. We also surveyed more than 1,200 U.S. adults on the most annoying Christmas songs.

In this article

The states have a variety of favorite Christmas tunes. Of the 26 Christmas songs evaluated from last year's Christmas Billboard Hot 100, 18 different songs were most popular in at least one U.S. state.

A map showing the most popular Christmas song in each state.

The most popular holiday song in each state
State Song (2022)
Alabama Santa Baby
Alaska Jingle Bell Rock
Arizona Feliz Navidad
Arkansas Run Rudolph Run
California Feliz Navidad
Colorado It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Connecticut Underneath the Tree
Delaware A Holly Jolly Christmas
District of Columbia Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season
Florida Feliz Navidad
Georgia Santa Baby
Hawaii Last Christmas
Idaho Santa Baby
Illinois It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Indiana Run Rudolph Run
Iowa Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Kansas Jingle Bell Rock
Kentucky Run Rudolph Run
Louisiana Santa Baby
Maine Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Maryland The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)
Massachusetts Last Christmas
Michigan The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)
Minnesota Santa Baby
Mississippi Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Missouri Santa Baby
Montana Wonderful Christmastime
Nebraska Jingle Bell Rock
Nevada Feliz Navidad
New Hampshire It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas
New Jersey Underneath the Tree
New Mexico Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
New York Underneath the Tree
North Carolina It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
North Dakota Wonderful Christmastime
Ohio Underneath the Tree
Oklahoma Santa Baby
Oregon I'll Be Home for Christmas
Pennsylvania (There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays
Rhode Island Santa Baby
South Carolina Run Rudolph Run
South Dakota Jingle Bell Rock
Tennessee It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Texas Feliz Navidad
Utah A Holly Jolly Christmas
Vermont White Christmas
Virginia It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Washington Last Christmas
West Virginia Jingle Bell Rock
Wisconsin A Holly Jolly Christmas
Wyoming Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

The 1953 classic “Santa Baby,” sung by the legendary Eartha Kitt, was the most popular song in eight different states. That’s the most states of any song on our list.

Three other songs took the top spot in at least five states: “Jingle Bell Rock,” “It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad.”

While every song mentioned so far is at least 50 years old, there is one song released in the last decade that stood out in the results: Kelly Clarkson’s 2013 song “Underneath the Tree.” This song is on its way to becoming a modern classic, as it was the most popular Christmas song in four different states.

“Underneath the Tree” was also the most popular Christmas song in the Northeast region of the United States, but each of the other three regions favored older songs. “Jingle Bell Rock” was tops in the Midwest, “Santa Baby” claimed the crown in the South, and “Feliz Navidad” is the preferred holiday tune for people living out West.

The most annoying holiday songs, according to Americans

Of course, not every holiday song is beloved by everyone. To find out which songs people are sick of hearing, we asked 1,250 U.S. adults to tell us which Christmas song they find the most annoying.

A list of the songs people surveyed said are most annoying.

One song that feels unavoidable at Christmastime is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” It climbed to first on the Billboard Hot 100 during each of the past three Christmas seasons.

Despite its massive overall popularity, this song wasn’t the most popular song in any state (according to Google Trends). But it was named the most annoying Christmas song in our survey, which may mean people feel the song is overplayed during the holidays.

The second-most annoying song is the novelty song “The Chipmunk Song,” also known as “Christmas Don’t Be Late,” sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks. The high-pitched singing on the song definitely isn’t for everyone, so it’s no surprise to see it on this list.

Rounding out the top three is “Feliz Navidad,” a song that was actually one of the most popular across the country, according to Google Trends, but one that is also played often enough that it could turn off some listeners who think it’s overplayed.

How to shop and save this holiday season

Once Christmas music hits the airwaves, crowded stores and holiday sales are on the way, too. For people doing holiday shopping, here are some tips for saving this Christmas season:

  • Download apps that help you save. No matter where you like to shop, there’s probably an app that can save you money. Capital One Shopping, Ibotta, and Honey are some of the best around. They work with tons of stores and websites.
  • Get rewarded for your purchases. Make sure to use one of best cashback credit cards to earn points and cash back while crossing items off your shopping list.
  • Buy now, pay later. Many retailers partner with buy now, pay later lenders to offer purchase financing. Before you take advantage of it, make sure you understand where you can use buy now, pay later, and how it works.

Methodology

FinanceBuzz collected Google Trends search interest data on every Christmas song on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of Christmas 2021. For this analysis, we looked at “Search Interest” data for each song in every state.

Search Interest is a metric Google uses that normalizes searches to account for things like population, geography, and search proportionality compared to other terms, and then scales the results to assign a Search Interest score between 0-100.

Data for each song was collected individually. To break ties, songs were compared head-to-head directly within the Trends platform. The time frame for the collected data was set to “Past 5 years.” Data was collected November 9, 2022.

For the list of most annoying holiday songs, FinanceBuzz surveyed 1,250 U.S. adults in November, 2022.

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Author Details

Josh Koebert Josh Koebert is an experienced content marketer that loves exploring how personal finance overlaps with topics such as sports, food, pop culture, and more. His work has been featured on sites such as CNN, ESPN, Business Insider, and Lifehacker.

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