The Most Popular Christmas Songs in Each State

Christmas music is a key 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

Since its release in 1994, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" has quickly become a modern classic and holiday staple, a must-have for any holiday playlist or radio station playing seasonal tunes. At times, it can feel like this has become the Christmas song, one that is inescapable from the minute that Halloween costumes are put away and the calendar ticks over to November. Given how ubiquitous and popular this song is during the holiday season as a whole, it isn't surprising to see it take the top spot in nine different states, more than any other Christmas song last year.

Two different Christmas songs were most popular in seven different states, tied for second place overall. Both of those songs, "Santa Baby" and "Jingle Bells," have been popular for decades, and each has been performed and recorded by multiple popular artists.

"Santa Baby" was originally performed by Eartha Kitt, and that version still remains the standard for many holiday music enthusiasts. That hasn't stopped other artists from putting their own spin on the classic tune, however, as musicians such as Madonna, Taylor Swift, and even Kim Kardashian have recorded and released their own versions of the song.

"Jingle Bells" is a true holiday classic. It has been a staple of the Christmas season for more than 150 years since it was written in 1850, 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.

Eight more songs were most popular in at least two states. In this group of songs, "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" leads the pack as it was the most popular Christmas song in four different states, while "Run Rudolph Run" was the top song in three. The following songs were all most popular in two states each: "White Christmas," "Last Christmas," "Blue Christmas," "A Holly Jolly Christmas," "Feliz Navidad," and "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year."

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 six years, and it was the most popular Christmas song in nine different states last year, making it the preferred holiday jam for nearly 20% of the country. Overall, the song ranked as one of the five most popular Christmas songs in 27 different states. 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," a perennial classic during the Christmas season. 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:

• Get rewarded for your purchases. Make sure to use one of the best cash back credit cards to earn points and cash back while crossing items off your shopping list.
• Set a realistic holiday budget early. Before you shop, review your finances and set a spending limit you can stick to. Budgeting apps can help, and planning ahead means you'll avoid those last-minute panic purchases that blow your budget and control your holiday spending.
• Shop smarter online. Apps like Capital One Shopping and Rakuten can help you make the most of your budget, and they work with tons of stores.

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Methodology

FinanceBuzz collected Google Trends search interest data on the 25 highest-charting songs on the Billboard Holiday 100 for 2024. 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 in November 2025.

For the list of most annoying holiday songs, FinanceBuzz surveyed 1,250 U.S. adults and gave them a list of selections to rank.

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