The 50 Best Original Christmas Songs Since ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’
Queen of Christmas, meet your disciples.
In 2017, Berklee musicologist Joe Bennett published a lighthearted study on commonalities in the music and lyrics of Christmas songs. Written with a Santa-like wink, Bennett posited that the “ultimate Christmas song” would likely include some variation of his findings: A whopping 95 percent of the surveyed tracks were in a major key, and 90 percent were in the 4/4 time signature that echoes clopping horses and jangling sleigh bells. Home, romance, family, and the usual trappings of Christmas were also in the lyrical mix, with words like snow, party, and Santa cropping up.
Unsurprisingly, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” considered the peak of modern Christmas music, checks all of Bennett’s boxes. Combining the vibe of a lost track from 1963’s A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector with the production of a mid-’90s pop song, the lovelorn open letter helped land the octave-vaulting Carey the unofficial title of “Queen of Christmas.” The single has since become synonymous with the season, and has topped the Holiday 100 for 52 weeks, since the chart began in 2011. (It’s already re-entered the Hot 100 this year, landing at No. 25 on the November 26 chart.) Meanwhile, Carey has so embraced the Queen of Christmas ideal — this despite a recent legal ruling denying her a trademark of the title — that her November 1 videos where she trills “It’s tiii-iimmme!” have become the unofficial seasonal kickoff.
Yes, “All I Want” is indeed wonderful. But its 28-year reign over charts and hearts has meant that other, more modern Christmas tracks have been relegated to lower ranks of holiday playlists, despite their merit. If “All I Want” were a car, the almost three-decade-old tune would have graduated from classic to antique by now, putting it in the company of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (38 years old) or Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” (42). Consider the following 50 songs, including another from the queen herself, the new classics — those Christmas tunes created in the last quarter-century that have the potential to become holly, jolly staples. Nearly every one fulfills Bennett’s basic criteria for an ideal holiday track (some better than others), but only one has the commercial appeal and ear worm potential to compete against the queen herself.
50. The Snaildartha 6, “Snaildartha: The Story of Jerry the Christmas Snail” (2004)
Thanksgiving has “Alice’s Restaurant”; Christmas has “Snaildartha.” This 2004 composition tells the tale of Jerry the Christmas Snail, whose search for enlightenment leads him to the North Pole and a surprising revelation about who he is at his core. (It’s based on the story of the Buddha, hence the title.) Written by Minneapolis-based composer Chris Strouth, narrated by comedian Matt Fugate, and performed by a loose-limbed jazz combo that includes saxophonist George Cartwright, “Snaildartha” is a 45-ish-minute investment that gets even better with repeated listenings. Its vibe makes it an ideal lazy Christmas Day soundtrack, and its story is a balm for existentially troubled holiday revelers. Could the Snaildartha 6 wear a crown fit for Mariah Carey, though? Likely not, thus its spot at No. 50.
49. Cheap Trick, “I Want You for Christmas” (2012)
Since its release in 1977, Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” has been one of power pop’s greatest achievements, a rollicking riff with some genuine longing on the part of frontman Robin Zander. This Yuletide re-skinning of the song isn’t the most original Christmas tune out there; the realization that “to want me” and “for Christmas” had a similar cadence probably caused a lot of high-fiving in the studio. But the way it channels its source material’s carnality does echo the more gift-receiving-centric songs of the season.
48. The Vandals, “Oi! To the World” (1996)
SoCal punks the Vandals’ entry to the Christmas-song canon is a punchy fable about a Christmas Day clash between a punk and a skinhead where the good guys win. Fellow Golden Staters No Doubt covered this cut for 1997’s A Very Special Christmas 3, but Dave Quackenbush’s vocal on the original gives the final proclamation from God — “Oi to the punks and Oi to the skins / But Oi to the world and everybody wins” — an extra shove.
47. Ingrid Michaelson, “Happy, Happy Christmas” (2018)
This melancholic ballad feels like a 21st-century update of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”; it’s part-holiday song, part-elegy for the singer-songwriter’s mother, who she had spent every holiday with before her passing in 2017. While the way Michaelson’s voice breaks on the line “They say time flies, and baby, it’s true” is a gut-punch, the string-laden track grapples with grief in a way that is suffused with love.
46. Kate Nash, “I Hate You This Christmas” (2013)
Nash’s repertoire is studded with catchy, biting songs about rocky moments in romantic relationships. The crunchy, punky opening track on her first Christmas EP is no different, with its first verse depicting an office-party-drunk Nash walking in on her boyfriend and best friend getting it on. Her vitriol is punctuated by some real-life worries — how’s she going to tell her mom about this? — that only make her cresting anger more righteous, and more sing-along-ready, a crucial attribute for an “All I Want” successor.
45. Harvey Danger, “Sometimes You Have to Work at Christmas (Sometimes)” (1998)
A scruffy ode to service-industry workers who are obligated to spend their festive season taking care of customers (in this case, a movie theater attended by “15 soggy patrons who have nowhere to be”), this offering from Seattle’s Harvey Danger is a tenderly rendered set piece about the holidays’ less-glamorous corners capped by a spat-out chorus and a shimmying, giddy breakdown.
44. JoJo, “December Baby” (2020)
This breezy soul-pop cut has longing for love at its core — “Just keep followin’ the North Star / It’ll light the way crystal clear,” JoJo instructs her missing paramour — but its simmering beat and JoJo’s honey-dipped vocal are cheer-inducing enough to make this song feel downright festive.
43. The Long Blondes, “Christmas Is Cancelled” (2005)
The narrator of this chugging indie-pop cut has received an entirely unpleasant surprise for the holidays: her no-good ex, who’s shown up “in Christmas stockings (how shocking!)” to make the case for crawling back into her good graces. Long Blondes vocalist Kate Jackson’s steely alto is exquisite at conveying battle-of-the-sexes-borne disgust, telling her ex in no uncertain terms that the prospect of watching the queen on TV while having some solo fish and chips is a much better present than any reconciliation. It’s almost the opposite of ‘All I Want,” an admirable stance for a new classic to take.
42. Juliana Hatfield, “Christmas Cactus” (2020)
This shimmering ode to a stubbornly non-blooming plant that’s supposed to come into flower is a great metaphor for dashed holiday hopes — although Hatfield, whose recent run of songwriting productivity led to this track about an actual plant of hers, is pretty Zen about the whole thing. “I have faith that someday it may bloom,” Hatfield told the Boston Globe in 2020. “But if it doesn’t, that’s okay, too.”
41. Alphabeat, “Xmas (Let’s Do It Again)” (2012)
Danish collective Alphabeat specialized in time-suspended dance-pop that was relentlessly cheery even as vocalists Stine Bramsen and Anders Stig Gehrt Nielsen described longing and sadness. Their 2012 Christmas single is all about stoking merriment, though; Bramsen’s laser-beam soprano intertwines with Nielsen’s affable voice as they welcome the world to their party over pillowy synths.
40. Beach Bunny, “Christmas Caller” (2021)
The TikTok-beloved indie-pop band’s first Christmas single is a hooky throwback to the call-me-maybe era, with Lili Trifilio longing to hear the voice of an ex: “We can pretend the holiday antics / Give us an excuse to speak,” she suggests over choppy riffs and snow-flecked synths. She doesn’t get an answer — the doo-doo-doo’s that close out the song suggest that she’s figured out ways to distract herself — but the song’s sweetness and longing make it hard not to root for her. It’s one of the younger classics on the list, so it still has room to rise.
39. The Monkees, “Christmas Party” (2018)
The late-2010s resurgence of the Monkees resulted in a pair of albums helmed by the late Adam Schlesinger that showed how the Prefab Four had influenced so many modern pop masters. Christmas Party, the 2018 release that wound up being the Monkees’ final album, included tracks penned by Rivers Cuomo and Andy Partridge alongside familiar cuts. “Christmas Party,” written by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Young Fresh Fellows’ Scott McCaughey and sung by Micky Dolenz, is a sun-dappled bit of psych-pop that channels the band’s later-period experimental side as it describes a party with such a lengthy guest list that the band’s former foil Auntie Grizelda snagged an invite.
38. The Both, “Nothing Left to Do (Let’s Make This Christmas Blue)” (2014)
Aimee Mann and Ted Leo describe holiday-season ennui in painstaking detail on this gently glum guitar-pop cut, which showcases their collective songwriting prowess in impressive fashion. Lesser songwriters would have their depictions of holiday loneliness descend into self-pity, but Mann and Leo instead sigh and “turn the radio on and wait for somеone to sing me through.”
37. Lizzo, “Never Felt Like Christmas” (2015)
Lizzo’s pre-megafame holiday song celebrates how the Yuletide season can double as cuffing season. Listening to this seven years after its release shows how fully formed the Minneapolis singer, rapper, flautist, and mogul’s aesthetic was even then through how she balances honesty (in the old days, “I would rather paint my nails and watch some bad TV” while others were celebrating) with her overwhelming charisma and powerhouse voice.
36. The 1975, “Wintering” (2022)
Throughout their career, Britpop heirs the 1975 have been refining their human-condition observations. But their peppy entry into the holiday-song canon, which appeared on this year’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language, shows how their trenchant observations have a beating heart at their core. A brisk whirl through overheard family conversations about logistics and gossip that sonically recalls early-’80s modern-rock holiday offerings like Squeeze’s “Christmas Day,” it illustrates how exhausting yet gratifying going home for the holidays can be: “It’s Christmas so this is gonna be a nightmare / I just came for the stuffing, not to argue about nothing / But mark my words, I’ll be home on the 23rd,” Healy vows near the song’s end, belying his enjoyment of the sometimes-exasperating times.
35. Sally Shapiro, “Anorak Christmas” (2006)
This mid-2000s cut by the Swedish disco duo of Sally Shapiro and Johan Agebjörn is an icy synth-dance ode to an out-of-reach crush Shapiro met at a concert. The outro, where Shapiro repeats “Don’t go, don’t go” as if she’s trying to beam it into her affection object’s brain, is hypnotic enough to be worthy of its own remix. (For the record, Mariah’s “All I Want for Christmas” got its own official remix in 2003, with Jermaine Dupri and Bow Wow.)
34. Lil Jon, “All I Really Want for Christmas (feat. Kool-Aid Man)” (2018)
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