Holiday Hits

The First Christmas Chart

The national charts began presenting an annual Christmas /holiday singles and albums charts in 1963. Before that time, holiday themed hits were included in the weekly Hot 100 or the Bubbling Under charts.

The Christmas singles’ charts continued until 1972 at which time holiday releases once again were included on the regular weekly charts. Then for a brief period – 1983 thru 1985 – the records reappeared only to be discontinued after 1985. From that point on, a Holiday single could only appear on the weekly Hot 100 or a regional chart.

Long Plays were a different story – Much like the singles, Holiday LP’s were listed each year from 1963-1973 with the chart title “Christmas LP’s”.

Then they reappeared from 1983 to 1985 as “Christmas Albums” – 1986 was skipped and then resumed in 1987 running to 1993 as the “Top Christmas Albums”. From 1994 on they became the “Top Holiday Albums”.

Bing Crosby

Just a note – Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” charted 20 times – peaking at number 1 the first time in 1942 for 11 consecutive weeks! “White Christmas returned to the number 1 position two more times and entered the Hot 100 Top 10 eight additional times.

Over time, “White Christmas” has sold more than 50 million copies. Total sales of “White Christmas” by all artists h as totaled more than100 million copies world wide.

Crosby first performed the song on a radio program broadcast on Christmas Day in 1941. He then recorded the song for the first time in the spring of 1942 accompanied by the Ken Darby Singers. Decca and Bing didn’t think a lot about the song – and it would then be released in July of that year as part of a six-pack of 78 rpm singles – all taken from the movie “Holiday Inn”.

White Christmas and the Darby Singers

Crosby was a real holiday kind of guy – His versions of “Silent Night”, “Silver Bells”, “How Lovely Is Christmas”, “Adeste Fideles”, “Do You Hear What I Hear”, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, “Sleigh Ride In July”, “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” were all frequent visitors to the nation’s charts.

Crosby’s “Silent Night” in 1940 (and January of ’41) preceded “White Christmas” on the charts by two years.

A nice thing for the musicians, often – very often, their Christmas/Holiday recordings would resurface and re-chart year after year – especially Nat “King” Cole, Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and Elvis Presely.

The King Presley

Elvis enjoyed a long holiday chart run for his long plays. His first Christmas album “Elvis Christmas Album” charted number 1 on the Hot LP charts in 1957 – it’s debut year – for four straight weeks. The LP would be reissued in 1960 and would this time reach number 33 on the Hot LP charts.

Over the following years his “Christmas Album” would over 20 times in different years.

Beyond the “Elvis Christmas Album”, Presley would place six additional holiday long plays (shown below) on the various charts.

Mariah’s Classic

On a side note – Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” had an interesting journey to achieving number 1 status. She first released the song – which she co-wrote – in 1994 and it would actually peak at number 6 the first week of January in 1995.

Over the years the song would chart repeatedly, even reaching number 1 on what was termed “The Recurrent Hits Charts” four times from 2005 to 2008. Those charts were done away with in 2009 and so the song would compete on the Hot LP charts with all recordings. 2017 and 2019 saw the song enter the Top Ten. Then finally, in 2019, the holiday anthem would become number 1 completing a 26-year journey to the top.

Christmas Time Selected Discography

Presented here are the number 1 Christmas singles and number 1 LPs for the years 1963 thru 1972 and 1983 thru 1985 when we had Christmas charts. The number of chart positions varied from year to year – sometimes dramatically – such as going from a handful early on to a complete 100 listings for a time.

This discography is presented up through 1987.