It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas!

Music makes Christmas feel more Christmassy for me. For years we had a few Christmas CDs that were on heavy seasonal rotation in our house. However, in the last couple of years we’ve been collecting Christmas CDs by a range of artists.

Some of our Christmas albums...

Christmas albums almost always include several covers – and compilation CDs often include different classic Christmas songs covered by lots of different people. So, for example, I have fourteen different versions of White Christmas. Meanwhile I have eight different versions of Blue Christmas. (The colours don’t stop there – The Muppets did a song called ‘Red and Green Christmas’ and Barenaked Ladies recorded ‘Green Christmas’ plus I have two different recordings of 'Purple Snowflakes'.)

In the past month a couple of people have mentioned the Christmas Card audits that I used to publish every year. I’m not planning on restarting them this Christmas but I thought I could share some ‘stats’ about Christmas music. It’s not really an audit, more some number-crunching. (And if you want to enjoy the ACCAs of Christmases past, then they are all collected on this page!)

I currently have 34 different albums or compilations of Christmas songs and music entered onto a spreadsheet. It doesn’t include film soundtrack albums for The Muppet Christmas Carol or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Some of the compilations have multiple discs (anything up to five!). The total number of songs across all the albums in the spreadsheet is 821.

In terms of most popular songs, I decided to count this as different recorded versions. For example, Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens appears on four of the compilation CDs but would only count as one version of the song. It also throws up some quirks – I have five different versions of All I Want for Christmas is You, but I don’t have the original sung by Mariah Carey. Clearly, Mariah doesn't want to license it cheaply to the people compiling albums. 

So, with that in mind, I’m sure you are wondering what the most popular Christmas recordings in my collection are. Here are the songs that I have the most versions of by different artists.

Top of the heap is Winter Wonderland. I have sixteen different versions of this song, by a variety of artists. It also lends its name to one of the compilation albums – with tracks by different country artists.

White Christmas, Silent Night and Santa Claus is Coming to Town are in a three-way tie for second place with 14 different versions. Meanwhile, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is in third (or fifth depending how you count these things) with 12 recordings. The First Noel and Jingle Bells are both on 10 recordings. Only one version of Jingle Bells, by Barenaked Ladies, includes the alternate lyrics about how Batman smells. 

So, if you are picking up a collection of Christmas songs, I predict the most likely song you will hear on there is Winter Wonderland. I have enough versions that I could create a mixtape of just that song, sung by different people. Although you might yet hear it sung by someone else who I don’t have in my collection of tunes. Here’s my list of Winter Wonderland warblers for you to compare:

Kylie Minogue, Connie Francis, Darius Rucker, James Taylor, Macy Gray, Joy Electric, Johnny Mercer, Jason Mraz, The Saturdays, Elvis Presley, Norah Jones, Doris Day, Mickey Mouse & Friends, Jerrod Nieman, Louie Armstrong, Bill Doggett.

There are some famous names on that list! (I’m not a hundred per cent sure it is actually Mickey Mouse and the Disney CD this is on doesn’t give a list of vocal performers, as far as I recall.)

I’m hoping to blog some reviews of my favourite Christmas records. In the meantime, crank up the Christmas tunes!