The Most Popular Christmas Songs in Each State [2023]

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.

Most popular songs in each state

The states have a variety of favorite Christmas tunes. Of the 25 Christmas songs evaluated from last year's Christmas Billboard Hot 100, 21 different songs were most popular in at least one U.S. state.

The most popular holiday song in each state

Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has become an all-time holiday classic in the three decades since it was first released, and has climbed to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 during each of the past four Christmas seasons. It is also the most popular Christmas song in 10 different states — the most of any song on our list.

Five other songs took the top spot in at least three states: “Run Rudolph Run,” “It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls,” and Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad.”

Given how popular it is around the country, it should come as no surprise that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is the top song in multiple regions of the country. Mariah’s modern classic is the top song in both the Northeast region of the United States as well as the South.

Out West, “It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” takes the top spot, and four different songs (“Run Rudolph Run,” “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls,” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas”) are tied for the title of most popular song in the Midwest.

The most annoying holiday songs, according to Americans

The downside of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reaching peak popularity is that for every person who loves the song, there is someone who is sick of hearing it over and over again.

As a result, the uber-popular song was also named the most annoying Christmas song in our survey.

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,” another one of the most popular Christmas songs across the country according to Google Trends. Much like “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” this song comes on often enough during the holidays 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.
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• 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.

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Methodology

FinanceBuzz collected Google Trends search interest data on the 25 highest-charting Christmas songs on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of Christmas 2022. 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 16, 2023.

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

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