Listeners are embracing Christmas music earlier than ever this year. By Dec. 10, 20 of the top 25 tracks on Spotify in the United States had a festive theme. The few non-holiday holdouts were major releases such as Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Golden,” from Netflix’s hit film KPop Demon Hunters.
Matt Bailey, founder of the music analytics firm Hit Momentum, told The Wall Street Journal that audiences tend to gravitate toward familiar sounds during periods of stress. Holiday music, he said, offers an emotional anchor amid rising costs, job-market uncertainty, political divisions and global conflict—a pattern also seen when Christmas streaming surged early during the 2020 pandemic.
The omnipresence of Christmas songs also signals a rare monocultural moment in music. Despite listeners being spread across multiple streaming services and social platforms, many are tuning in to the same tracks.
For Talia Kraines, Spotify’s head of editorial overseeing North American Christmas playlists, holiday music helps “make people feel part of something collective and make them feel good.”
This year’s charts are led by the usual suspects: Mariah Carey’s exuberant anthem “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Brenda Lee’s sweet country classic “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and Wham!’s bittersweet “Last Christmas.” Songs from the 2010s are woven among the older staples, including Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me,” Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe,” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Underneath the Tree.”
“You’d be surprised how many people listen to Christmas music in the summer,” Kraines told the Journal. Spotify sees “the first big jump” in holiday streaming on Sep. 1, she said, followed by another rise the next month. In the U.S., the creation of holiday playlists increased by 60% from Oct. 2024 to Oct. 2025. By Nov., for many listeners, it’s “Christmas music all day, every day.”
Around the holidays, listeners also open up to less mainstream sounds. Pentatonix has sold more than 9 million Christmas albums in the U.S., while jazz-influenced singer Laufey draws over 1.3 million daily Spotify streams for her version of “Winter Wonderland.” Her manager, Max Gradinger, told the Journal that Christmas is when “the whole world listens to jazz.”
Even legacy artists see sharp holiday spikes. Adam Lowenberg, chief marketing officer at Primary Wave Music, said Bing Crosby earns about 70% of his annual streams in Dec., as collaborations with younger stars help introduce his catalog to new audiences.
