Best Christmas Song

There is no other genre where a song from 1994 and a song from 1944 compete on equal terms every December, and where being forty years old counts as a qualification rather than a handicap.

Christmas music runs on a rule nothing else obeys: a hit does not fade, it returns. Mariah Carey's contribution was reportedly written in about fifteen minutes and has been earning ever since. Wham! spent the winter of 1984 being kept off number one by a charity single George Michael himself sang on. The Pogues wrote a duet that spends four minutes arguing and is beloved for exactly that reason. Meanwhile Bing Crosby's version of White Christmas has outsold nearly everything ever recorded and almost nobody under fifty has chosen to play it. Forty-eight songs are in, spanning crooners, glam rock, novelty records, and one note held long enough to become an annual cultural event.

The thing worth deciding early is whether you are voting for the song or for the month, because those two things come apart fast. Several entries here are better records than the ones people actually pick, and a couple are barely songs at all but are welded to the season so firmly that nobody minds.