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It’s the most wonderful time of the year - yes, Christmas is nearly upon us again.
But wait!
Before we get ready to jingle our bells and eat too many chocolates, the burning question of which song will make it to Christmas number one remains unanswered, until it's announced on 21 December.
The BBC data elves wondered: How many Christmas songs have actually made it to number one? Has technology changed the way we listen? And most importantly, what should you listen to when driving home for Christmas this year?
Here’s a closer look at the data - and what it means.
Christmas songs have made up a much bigger chunk of the UK charts at Christmastime since the turn of the millennium.
Why?
That’s when those songs started being available on download (added 2004) and streaming (added 2014).
This means people can now cherry pick the Christmas songs they want, rather than having to buy entire Christmas albums.
It’s worth noting that in this period the number of singles included overall in the Official UK Charts has increased.
The singles chart started out as a slightly arbitrary 18 songs per week in 1952, but soon reached 50 songs in 1960, and has been increased in increments since.
The current level of 100 songs per week was set by the Official Charts Company in 1983. This created more room for Christmas songs on the charts than there had been 50 years ago.
Now, whether more Christmas songs are good or bad news - we’ll leave that up to you to decide…
