Endless Christmas Loop

I heard somewhere that, despite the tendency of every recording artist with more than 2 CDs to their name to go out and record a holiday CD, there are really only 50 Christmas songs. Everybody recycles the same old lot.

Only 50? Can that be right? Here I am with 2.1 days of music on my Christmas iTunes playlist.. is it really an endless loop of the same 50 songs? Well... what say I just go check?

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[checking]

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[checking]

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[still checking]

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Ah! Here. Definitive proof that there are more than 50 Christmas songs. I copied my iTunes playlist into Excel, dropped the title and artist columns into a pivot table, and sorted the output by the number of artists I have per song. After dropping out the songs with only 2 versions (realizing there could be some mis-spellings going on in the list), I came up with an even 100! Just to give you a feel for what they are (and, I suppose, for my tastes in music), here's a list of all Christmas songs I have with 5 or more unique versions:

Title & Versions
Silent Night 61
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas 40
I'll Be Home for Christmas 38
White Christmas 38
Winter Wonderland 36
Auld Lang Syne 33
The Christmas Song 31
O Holy Night 29
Joy To The World 28
Jingle Bells 27
Angels We Have Heard On High 23
Little Drummer Boy 23
We Three Kings 23
Sleigh Ride 21
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear 20
The First Noel 20
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town 18
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 17
What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? 17
Silver Bells 16
Carol of the Bells 15
Christmas Time Is Here 14
Deck The Halls 14
O Come All Ye Faithful 14
O Little Town of Bethlehem 13
Ave Maria 12
Away In A Manger 12
Blue Christmas 12
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 12
What Child Is This 12
Do You Hear What I Hear? 11
O Come, O Come Emmanuel 11
Santa Baby 10
What Child Is This? 10
Frosty the Snowman 9
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! 9
Baby, It's Cold Outside 8
Go Tell It On The Mountain 8
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing 8
Let It Snow 7
My Favorite Things 7
O Christmas Tree 7
Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town 7
The Christmas Waltz 7
We Wish You A Merry Christmas 7
12 Days of Christmas 6
Baby It's Cold Outside 6
Christmas Island 6
Good King Wenceslas 6
Hark The Herald Angels Sing 6
Here Comes Santa Claus 6
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm 6
Merry Christmas Baby 6
This Christmas 6
Cool Yule 5
I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day 5
I Saw Three Ships 5
I Wonder as I Wander 5
In The Bleak Midwinter 5
Merry Christmas Darling 5


Heck, there's 60 right here! So there you go. Merry Christmas, and happy listening!