The Most Popular Christmas Songs in Each State [2024]

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 Christmas song in each state

Originally written in 1850, “Jingle Bells” is a true holiday classic. It has been a staple of the Christmas season for more than 150 years, and dozens of artists, including Michael Bublé, Dolly Parton, and William Shatner, have recorded versions of the tune. The song is so ubiquitous and well-known that it was one of the first songs broadcast from space when astronauts on the Gemini 6 spacecraft performed a version for mission control in 1965.

“Jingle Bells” was also the most popular Christmas song in the country last year, claiming the top spot in 14 different states last year, more than double the number of states the second-place song was most popular in. Across all 50 states and D.C., Jingle Bell registered an average search volume score of 87 out of 100, nearly 10 points higher than any other song.

The song that was most popular in the second-highest number of states was “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!”, which was the top holiday tune in six different states. Four songs were tied for third place, taking the crown in three states each. Those songs were “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Last Christmas,” “It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year,” and “Deck The Halls.”

The most annoying holiday songs, according to Americans

For many merry makers one of the true hallmarks of the holiday season is when Mariah Carey’s modern classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” starts getting regular airplay in stores and on the radio. The song has hit number one overall on the Billboard during Christmas week each of the last five years, and while it was the most popular song based on search volume in just two states last year, it ranked as one of the five most popular Christmas songs in more than half the country (27 states), including 20 states where it was one of the top three most popular songs of the season. Mariah’s yuletide anthem has become so popular as to become unavoidable during Christmas time, but not everyone is happy about that.

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.
• Get rewarded for your purchases. Make sure to use one of best cash back 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.

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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 2023. 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 19, 2024.

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

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