All the carols

All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth

Teacher Donald Yetter Gardner wrote a lisp song in 1944, and Spike Jones made it a hit with George Rock in 1948.

All I Want for Christmas Is You

Mariah Carey and Walter Afanasieff wrote a fast 1994 love song that now returns to number one each December.

Angels from the Realms of Glory

James Montgomery published this summons to angels, shepherds, sages, and saints in his Sheffield newspaper, the Iris, in 1816.

Angels We Have Heard on High

The English text commonly sung is by James Chadwick in 1862, from the French Les Anges dans nos campagnes, with a long Gloria refrain from Luke.

Auld Lang Syne

Robert Burns shaped older Scottish fragments in 1788 into the song people still sing for old times at Hogmanay and New Year.

Ave Maria

Schubert's Ave Maria of 1825 sets Ellen's song from Walter Scott, and it is not the full Latin prayer.

Away in a Manger

The anonymous American text is not by Martin Luther. James R. Murray published the Mueller tune in 1887, and William J. Kirkpatrick wrote Cradle Song in 1895.

Blue Christmas

Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson wrote a 1948 lost love song that Elvis Presley later painted blue for good.

The Boar's Head Carol

The boar's head in hand bear I, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1521 and still sung at Queen's College, Oxford, when the boar's head is carried in to dinner.

Breath of Heaven

Amy Grant shaped Chris Eaton's song into a quiet first person prayer in Mary's voice on her 1992 Christmas album.

Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella

A Provençal carol in which two girls are told to carry a torch to the cradle and to keep quiet so the child can sleep.

Carol of the Bells

Mykola Leontovych built Shchedryk in 1916 from a Ukrainian New Year chant, and Peter J. Wilhousky added the English Christmas lyric in 1936.

Caroling, Caroling

Alfred Burt and Wihla Hutson invite the street to sing, then ask the carolers to hush before the child.

The Cherry Tree Carol

Child Ballad 54, an English folk carol in which a cherry tree bows to Mary after Joseph refuses her fruit, a legend outside the biblical nativity.

Children, Go Where I Send Thee

This cumulative spiritual counts toward a little bitty baby, and the numbers change from singer to singer.

The Christmas Song

Robert Wells and Mel Torme wrote The Christmas Song in a hot California summer in 1945, and Nat King Cole recorded it the next year.

Christmas Time Is Here

Vince Guaraldi wrote the quiet jazz theme for A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Lee Mendelson added the words.

The Christmas Waltz

Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne wrote a 1954 waltz because Frank Sinatra wanted a Christmas song that was not another try at White Christmas.

Christmas Wrapping

A busy woman tries to skip Christmas, then meets the man she kept missing when she ducks out for cranberries.

Coventry Carol

A mother's lament from the Coventry Shearmen and Tailors pageant, with a text linked to Robert Croo in 1534 and music from 1591.

Deck the Halls

The melody is the Welsh Nos Galan, and Thomas Oliphant wrote the familiar English fa la la words in 1862.

Ding Dong! Merrily on High

George Ratcliffe Woodward wrote the words in 1924 for the sixteenth century French dance tune Branle de l'Official.

Do They Know It's Christmas?

Band Aid recorded Bob Geldof and Midge Ure's 1984 song in one London day to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne wrote this 1962 dialogue as a plea for peace during the Cuban missile crisis.

Dominick the Donkey

Lou Monte's 1960 novelty gives Santa an Italian donkey who can climb the hills that reindeer cannot manage.

Driving Home for Christmas

Chris Rea turned a cold, crowded journey toward Middlesbrough into a motorway song about simply getting home.

Fairytale of New York

The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl set a tender and bitter lovers' quarrel in a New York drunk tank on Christmas Eve.

Feliz Navidad

José Feliciano wrote and recorded a simple Spanish and English greeting in 1970 that anyone in the room can finish.

The First Noel

This Cornish carol was printed in a short form by Davies Gilbert in 1822 and in the familiar text by William Sandys in 1823.

The Friendly Beasts

A children's carol in which the donkey, cow, sheep, and dove each offer a gift at the manger, sung to the medieval melody Orientis Partibus.

Frosty the Snowman

Walter Rollins and Steve Nelson wrote Frosty in 1950, and the magic is an old silk hat, not a wizard from the later film.

Fum, Fum, Fum

A lively Catalan carol for the twenty fifth of December, in which the syllable fum imitates a strum or a drum under news of the birth.

Gabriel's Message

A Basque Annunciation carol, Birjina gaztetto bat zegoen, paraphrased into English by Sabine Baring Gould as The angel Gabriel from heaven came.

Gaudete

A Latin carol of rejoicing printed in the Finnish school songbook Piae Cantiones in 1582, centuries before a British folk group took the refrain onto the pop chart.

Gesu Bambino

Pietro Yon composed this Italian pastorale in 1917, and the refrain quotes the tune of Adeste Fideles.

The Gloucestershire Wassail

In Gloucestershire a visiting song toasts the house, the horse, the cow, and the maid who opens the door.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

An African American spiritual whose refrain is older than the printed Christmas verses fixed by John Wesley Work Jr. and the Fisk University circle in the early 1900s.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

An English carol from the sixteenth or seventeenth century whose comma after merry asks God to keep the gentlemen strong, not to describe their mood.

Good King Wenceslas

John Mason Neale wrote the words in 1853 to a spring tune from Piae Cantiones of 1582, about the Duke of Bohemia later called a king.

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Elmo and Patsy turned Randy Brooks's broad joke about a holiday accident into a novelty record some listeners still find mean.

Grown-Up Christmas List

The singer asks not for toys but for an end to war and fear, a wish close in spirit to Someday at Christmas.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono turned their 1969 peace campaign into a 1971 Christmas record with a children's choir and Phil Spector.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Charles Wesley wrote Hark, how all the welkin rings in 1739, George Whitefield changed the opening, and William Hayman Cummings paired the hymn with Mendelssohn in 1855.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Hugh Martin wrote this song for Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis, and the lyric grew brighter in three stages.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Gene Autry turned a Hollywood parade shout into a 1947 procession song with sleigh bells and a quiet thank you.

Here We Come A Wassailing

English neighbors once carried a bowl of hot spiced drink from door to door and sang for the health of the house.

The Holly and the Ivy

A traditional English carol about holly and ivy, with a text close to the modern one in print by the early nineteenth century.

A Holly Jolly Christmas

Johnny Marks wrote a snowy courtship for the 1964 Rudolph special, and Burl Ives sang it as Sam the snowman.

The Huron Carol

Jean de Brébeuf wrote a Wendat carol, Jesous Ahatonhia, near Georgian Bay about 1643, to a French folk tune. The familiar English is a later paraphrase, not a literal translation.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem Christmas Bells on Christmas Day 1863, moving from the grief of war to a hope that the wrong shall fail.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

British writer Tommie Connor gave a child a 1952 joke, and thirteen year old Jimmy Boyd sang it straight to the top.

I Saw Three Ships

An English folk carol printed by William Sandys in 1823, about three ships sailing into Bethlehem on Christmas morning.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

Roy Wood and Wizzard close their 1973 glam single with a children's choir and a wish that the holiday would not end.

I Wonder as I Wander

John Jacob Niles built this song in 1933 from a fragment he heard from Annie Morgan in Murphy, North Carolina.

I'll Be Home for Christmas

Kim Gannon and Walter Kent wrote a 1943 ballad of a traveler who can promise a Christmas homecoming only inside a dream.

Il est né, le divin Enfant

An eighteenth century French carol, He is born, the divine child, with a dancing dotted rhythm that calls for oboes, fifes, and a joyful refrain.

In Dulci Jubilo

A macaronic carol of Latin and German in praise of the infant, linked by tradition to Henry Suso about 1328, and freely paraphrased in English as Good Christian Men, Rejoice.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Christina Rossetti published the poem in 1872, Gustav Holst set it in 1906, and Harold Darke's 1911 setting is the one many choirs prefer.

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly

The Polish carol W żłobie leży, in the manger he lies, given an English paraphrase by Edith M. G. Reed about 1920.

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

Edmund Hamilton Sears, a Unitarian minister in Wayland, Massachusetts, wrote this peace hymn in 1849, and Richard Storrs Willis composed the tune Carol in 1850.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Meredith Willson wrote a 1951 shopping song, and Perry Como and Bing Crosby recorded it before The Music Man made him famous.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Edward Pola and George Wyle wrote a 1963 list song that became Andy Williams's own December signature.

Jingle Bell Rock

Joe Beal and Jim Boothe supplied the song Bobby Helms turned into a 1957 rock and roll Christmas dance.

Jingle Bells

James Lord Pierpont published One Horse Open Sleigh in 1857, a sleigh racing song later called Jingle Bells, with both Savannah and Medford claiming its start.

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

This late nineteenth century American children's song whispers a Christmas wish, and no author has been proved.

Joy to the World

Isaac Watts published the text in 1719 as a Christian paraphrase of Psalm 98, and Lowell Mason paired it with the tune Antioch in 1836.

Last Christmas

George Michael wrote and recorded Last Christmas with Wham! in 1984, a heartbreak that lost Christmas number one to Band Aid and then outlasted the loss.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne wrote Let It Snow in a Hollywood heat wave in 1945, and the lyric never mentions Christmas.

Let There Be Peace on Earth

Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller wrote a 1955 youth retreat song that asks peace to begin with the singer.

The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot

A 1930s ballad tells of a poor child Santa missed, and Tommie Connor later wrote a much lighter Santa song.

The Little Drummer Boy

Katherine K. Davis wrote The Carol of the Drum in 1941, and the 1958 Simeone recording made the drummer a hit.

Little Saint Nick

The Beach Boys give Santa a hot rod and wrap the season in the same harmonies they used for their car songs.

Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming

A German carol of the late sixteenth century on the root of Jesse, later harmonized by Michael Praetorius and sung in English after Theodore Baker's 1894 translation.

Mary Had a Baby

A coastal spiritual answers its own plain questions: Mary had a baby, and the people keep coming.

Mary, Did You Know?

Mark Lowry wrote the questions in 1984, Buddy Greene set them to music in 1991, and church soloists have been asking Mary ever since.

Mary's Boy Child

Jester Hairston wrote this calypso nativity in 1956, and Harry Belafonte's recording carried it far beyond the choir room.

Mele Kalikimaka

R. Alex Anderson wrote a Hawaiian way of saying Merry Christmas in 1949, and Bing Crosby sang it with the Andrews Sisters in 1950.

Merry Christmas Darling

Frank Pooler wrote the wish in 1946, Richard Carpenter set it in 1966, and Karen Carpenter's alto made it famous in 1970.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Shakin' Stevens took Bob Heatlie's bright rock and roll greeting to the UK Christmas number one in 1985.

Mistletoe and Holly

Frank Sinatra helped write a warm 1957 list of holly, snow, and simply being together, less famous than The Christmas Waltz but his own.

Must Be Santa

A call and response list of Santa's clothes became a Mitch Miller sing along, a children's song, and later a Bob Dylan polka.

O Christmas Tree

Ernst Anschutz wrote the familiar German praise of the faithful fir in 1824, to a tune that already had other lives.

O Come, All Ye Faithful

The Latin hymn Adeste Fideles was copied by John Francis Wade about 1743, and Frederick Oakeley made the standard English translation in 1841.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

John Mason Neale translated the Latin Advent hymn in 1851, and Thomas Helmore joined it to a tune from a fifteenth century French processional.

O Holy Night

Placide Cappeau wrote Minuit, chretiens in 1847 in Roquemaure, Adolphe Adam composed the music, and John Sullivan Dwight published the English version in 1855.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Phillips Brooks wrote the text after visiting Bethlehem on Christmas Eve 1865, and Lewis Redner set it for a Philadelphia Sunday school service in 1868.

O Sanctissima

This Latin hymn to Mary, called the Sicilian Mariners' Hymn, was printed in London in the late eighteenth century.

Once in Royal David's City

Cecil Frances Alexander wrote the hymn in 1848 to teach children a line of the creed, and Henry John Gauntlett composed the tune Irby.

Patapan

Bernard de La Monnoye's Burgundian noel of about 1720, in which Willie takes up a little drum and the flute answers with the sound patapan.

Personent hodie

Let resound today, a Latin Christmas carol in the 1582 book Piae Cantiones, later arranged for choirs by Gustav Holst and sung in English as On this day earth shall ring.

Please Come Home for Christmas

Charles Brown and Gene Redd wrote a slow 1960 blues plea, and the Eagles turned it into a rock radio Christmas letter in 1978.

Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow

An African American spiritual follows a star in the east and tells the shepherd to leave the flock.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Johnny Marks wrote a party hop that thirteen year old Brenda Lee recorded in Nashville in 1958.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Robert L. May wrote Rudolph in 1939 as a store booklet, and Johnny Marks turned the story into a 1949 song that Gene Autry recorded.

Run Rudolph Run

Chuck Berry sends Rudolph on a frantic errand and plays the chase like a twelve bar rock and roll sprint.

Santa Baby

Joan Javits, Philip Springer, and Tony Springer wrote a 1953 nightclub list, and Eartha Kitt delivered it as a knowing joke.

Santa Claus Is Back in Town

Leiber and Stoller wrote Elvis a 1957 blues shout with a wink and a growl, answered by the Jordanaires.

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town

Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots turned a 1934 children's warning into the December song America still uses to police a pout.

See Amid the Winter's Snow

Edward Caswall's 1858 hymn of a northern nativity, set in 1871 to John Goss's tune Humility, with a refrain that hails the blessed morn.

The Seven Joys of Mary

An English folk counting carol of Mary's joys, beginning with the birth of the blessed child, with lists that change from place to place and are not a single fixed canon.

Silent Night

Joseph Mohr wrote the German poem in 1816 in Mariapfarr, and Franz Xaver Gruber set it for guitar and two voices on Christmas Eve 1818 in Oberndorf.

Silver Bells

Jay Livingston and Ray Evans wrote Silver Bells in 1950 for The Lemon Drop Kid, a song about city sidewalks, not a sleigh.

Sleigh Ride

Leroy Anderson wrote the orchestral sleigh ride in the late 1940s, and Mitchell Parish added words in 1950.

Some Children See Him

Alfred Burt set Wihla Hutson's 1951 lyric for his family's Christmas card, and children in it picture a face like their own.

Someday at Christmas

Stevie Wonder's Motown recording turns a Christmas wish into a plea for a world without war, hunger, or fear.

Step Into Christmas

Elton John and Bernie Taupin open the door on a bright glam Christmas, with a Phil Spector influence John himself acknowledged.

Still, Still, Still

An Austrian folk lullaby associated with Salzburg, in which the night grows quiet and Mary sings the child to sleep. It is not the same song as Silent Night.

Stop the Cavalry

Jona Lewie's 1980 soldier song wants the fighting to stop and the singer sent home, and December radio made it a Christmas record.

Sussex Carol

On Christmas night all Christians sing, a traditional English text that Ralph Vaughan Williams heard from Harriet Verrall of Monk's Gate, Sussex, in 1904.

Sweet Little Jesus Boy

Robert MacGimsey wrote this 1934 song in the manner of a spiritual, and the manner is not the same thing as the tradition.

This Christmas

Donny Hathaway and Nadine McKinnor wrote a warm 1970 soul groove about the Christmas that finally happens with the right person.

Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day

An English carol printed by William Sandys in 1833, in which Christ tells his life from birth to rising as a dance offered for his true love.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

This English cumulative carol was printed by about 1780 in Mirth Without Mischief, and Frederic Austin's 1909 arrangement fixed the long phrase on five gold rings.

Up on the Housetop

Benjamin Hanby wrote this Ohio song in the 1860s, with Santa on the roof, reindeer, and a click of hoofs.

We Need a Little Christmas

In Mame, Jerry Herman lets a gloomy household choose cheer early, treating Christmas as a decision rather than a nativity.

We Three Kings

John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote words and music in 1857 for a seminary pageant in New York, giving each king a verse for gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

A West Country wassail song, older than Arthur Warrell's famous 1935 choral arrangement for the University of Bristol Madrigal Singers.

Wexford Carol

Good people all, this Christmas time, an Irish carol of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, written down by William Grattan Flood and published for a wider public in 1928.

What Child Is This?

William Chatterton Dix wrote the text about 1865, and it is sung to the sixteenth century English tune Greensleeves.

What Christmas Means to Me

On the same 1967 album as his hope song, Stevie Wonder cuts a joyful Motown groove about candles, mistletoe, and the season.

Where Are You Christmas?

Faith Hill sings a 2000 film ballad about a Christmas feeling that seems lost and then finds its way back.

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks

Nahum Tate published this close paraphrase of Luke in 1700, and for years it was the only Christmas hymn allowed beside the psalms in the Church of England.

White Christmas

Irving Berlin wrote White Christmas for the 1942 film Holiday Inn, and Bing Crosby sang the version the century kept.

Winter Wonderland

Felix Bernard and Dick Smith wrote Winter Wonderland in 1934, a bright walk composed while Smith was ill, with two different snowman verses.

Wonderful Christmastime

Paul McCartney wrote, played, and released a synth Christmas single in 1979 that critics cooled on and radio refused to drop.