It’s that time again where Christmas music takes over, from your local shops and radio stations to your family sitting room. Some Christmas tunes put us right in the festive mood, while some… well, don’t. Whether your vice is one of the timeless classics, or a modern hit trying to be edgy, everyone seems to have their own opinion on their favourite (and least favourite) Christmas songs.
This polarising time is what has led us to conduct a thorough and extensive research project to discover, amongst other things, what are the most ‘annoying’ Christmas songs
Casino Kings’ research team analysed thousands of online discussions across Reddit to explore which songs listeners love, which they tolerate, and which they find annoying. The aim? To see which songs people really can’t stand, which they adore, and which divide the opinions of the masses. More on our methodology later.
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New Players Only. Wager from real balance first. 50X wager the bonus money within 30 days and 50x wager any winnings from the free spins within 7 days. Contribution varies per game. Available on selected games only. Wager calculated on bonus bets only. Bonus offer and any winnings from the offer are valid for 30 days / Free spins and any winnings from the free spins are valid for 7 days from receipt. Max conversion: 3 times the bonus amount or from free spins: £20. Withdrawal requests void all active/pending bonuses. Excluded Skrill and Neteller deposits. Full Terms apply.
Top Christmas Songs People Love
Not every song provokes annoyance. Certain songs consistently receive positive mentions, often because they’re upbeat, nostalgic, or simply just well-made.
Some of the top-loved songs include:
- Little Saint Nick, The Beach Boys – Highest positive-per-comment ratio (1.8) with zero negativity.
- Underneath the Tree, Kelly Clarkson – Consistently positive sentiment across multiple comments.
- Christmas Time Is Here, Vince Guaraldi Trio – Many positive mentions, minimal negative reactions.
- Christmas Baby Please Come Home, Darlene Love – Steady positivity across a moderate sample.
- Winter Wonderland, Bing Crosby – High positivity, though minor negative comments slightly reduce the score.
These songs often evoke nostalgia, warmth, and festive cheer. Many of them also appear on Michael Bublé’s Christmas albums – fitting, given his reputation as the “King of Christmas.” This suggests that listeners may just want some great vocals and classic holiday charm to get merry to.
Top 10 Most Loved Christmas Songs (According to Reddit)
| Rank | Song | Number of Comments | Positive Words | Positive-per-comment Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Little Saint Nick |
5 |
9 |
1.8 |
|
2 |
Underneath The Tree |
14 |
25 |
1.78 |
|
3 |
Christmas Time Is Here |
19 |
32 |
1.68 |
|
4 |
Christmas Baby Please Come Home |
14 |
20 |
1.42 |
|
5 |
Winter Wonderland |
13 |
21 |
1.61 |
|
6 |
Jingle Bells |
23 |
34 |
1.47 |
|
7 |
The Christmas Song |
56 |
60 |
1.07 |
|
8 |
Sleigh Ride |
22 |
22 |
1 |
|
9 |
Do You Hear What I Hear? |
16 |
13 |
0.81 |
|
10 |
O Holy Night |
23 |
20 |
0.86 |
The Most Annoying Christmas Songs
While some songs are universally loved, others consistently spark irritation. By analysing the ratio of negative emotional words to positive ones, several songs stood out as particularly polarising or annoying.
Some songs, however, consistently spark irritation. By analysing negative-per-comment ratios and “annoyance words”, the study highlighted which songs polarise or irritate listeners most.
The top songs that provoke annoyance include:
- Santa Baby, Eartha Kitt – High negative-per-comment ratio (0.47) and heavily criticised in comments.
- Frosty the Snowman, Gene Autry – Surprisingly high negativity (0.75), reflecting strong dislike among some listeners.
- Wonderful Christmastime, Paul McCartney – Extremely polarising; lots of positive and negative emotion, but heavy negativity lowers its overall score.
- Jingle Bell Rock, Bobby Helms – High negative sentiment in online discussions.
- Snowman, Sia – Mixed sentiment, but leans negative overall.
- Overplay Fatigue: Songs that are heard everywhere can become grating.
- Polarising Styles: Certain vocals, arrangements, or novelty elements divide opinion.
- Emotional Intensity: Songs that provoke strong reactions tend to attract more negative language.
What Makes a Christmas Song 'Good' or 'Bad'?
The research also sheds light on why some songs are adored while others annoy:
- Festive spirit – Words like Christmas, merry, and holiday dominate positive discussions. Songs that evoke the season’s cheer tend to score high.
- Musical quality – Listeners care about vocals, arrangements, and production. Well-performed songs are more likely to be loved.
- Nostalgia – Older songs often evoke childhood memories or family traditions, adding to their appeal.
- Overplay – Even classics can become annoying if played constantly.
- Humour and memes – Some songs are criticised playfully rather than seriously, reflecting online joke culture.
This helps explain why some songs are polarising: they might be loved for nostalgia but criticised for overexposure or cheesy elements.
Top 15 Most Annoying Christmas Songs (According to Reddit)
From nearly 5,000 Reddit comments, the study identified the following songs as generating the highest proportion of annoyance-related comments:
| Rank | Song | Total Mentions | Annoying Mentions | Annoyance % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Jingle Bells |
23 |
9 |
39.13% |
|
2 |
Wonderful Christmastime |
39 |
14 |
35.90% |
|
3 |
Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town |
3 |
1 |
33.33% |
|
4 |
All I Want for Christmas Is You |
55 |
18 |
32.73% |
|
5 |
Winter Wonderland |
13 |
4 |
30.77% |
|
6 |
Jingle Bell Rock |
14 |
4 |
28.57% |
|
7 |
Holly Jolly Christmas |
7 |
2 |
28.57% |
|
8 |
Santa Baby |
36 |
10 |
27.78% |
|
9 |
Snowman |
12 |
3 |
25.00% |
|
10 |
Frosty The Snowman |
4 |
1 |
25.00% |
|
11 |
Christmas Lights |
9 |
2 |
22.22% |
|
12 |
Last Christmas |
82 |
18 |
21.95% |
|
13 |
Do They Know It’s Christmas |
22 |
4 |
18.18% |
|
14 |
Feliz Navidad |
17 |
3 |
17.65% |
|
15 |
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas |
28 |
4 |
14.29% |
This neutral, data-driven perspective shows which songs irritate listeners most often. It is, however, good to note that even these “annoying” songs remain popular in playlists and on the radio, showing that irritation doesn’t always mean unpopularity.
Assessing the List: Popular vs. Cheesy
So, it’s important to note that just because a song is seen as ‘annoying’, this does not mean its unpopular. It’s actually quite the contrary. Many songs that appear on the ‘most annoying’ list, such as Jingle Bells or All I Want for Christmas is You, are among some of Christmas songs that are most played by people.
In the same way, lesser known songs can avoid this ‘annoying’ list by simply not being popular enough to gain any good or bad attention. Cheesy Christmas songs (often novelty songs or over-the-top performances) tend to generate a strong emotional reaction (good or bad), which explains their presence.
Creating Your 2025 Christmas Playlist
Whether you’re in charge for the Christmas music playlist at your family party, the office do, or just want to get in a festive spirit for your commute, understanding which Christmas songs spark that annoying nerve can help you find the perfect mix. By including nostalgic classics, modern hits and consider the dreaded repeat, you can create a playlist that will be sure to get you the gig next year too.
- Include classics like Little Saint Nick and Michael Bublé hits alongside newer tunes
- Limit overplayed or polarising songs during repeated play sessions.
- Blend upbeat songs with slower, nostalgic tunes to please a wide audience.
Understanding listener sentiment helps keep playlists festive and enjoyable, rather than irritating.
Conclusion
Christmas songs for so many are the way to get the festive spirit going no matter what’s going on in your life. This why they evoke such strong emotions from warm nostalgia to outright annoyance. By examining online discussions, the team at Casino Kings has revealed which songs people love, which they tolerate, and which they’d just rather not listen to.
The analysis conducted has shown that even though songs like Jingle Bells, Wonderful Christmastime and Santa Claus is Coming to Town are classics, they are the top three most annoying Christmas songs. So, there you have it. Whether you’re compiling a festive playlist for family, friends or anyone else – find that line between the beloved classics and the modern twists.
Loading …How the Analysis Was Conducted
The methodology behind the study ensures it’s both rigorous and representative of online conversations about Christmas music. Researchers collected comments from four major Reddit communities: AskReddit, Christmas, ChristmasMusic, and ChristmasSongs.
This dataset contains the Top 50 most popular Christmas songs, extracted and ranked based on Spotify popularity scores. The goal of this dataset is to provide a clean, standardised list of Christmas tracks to be used for matching Reddit comments, sentiment analysis, and audience-opinion research.
To capture the full spectrum of opinions, six ‘seed’ keywords were used for search and analysis
- “Christmas song”
- “Christmas song annoys”
- “Best Christmas song”
- “Favo(u)rite Christmas song”
- “Worst Christmas song”
- “Christmas music”
After gathering posts and comments, the team cleaned the data to remove duplicates, deleted or empty posts, and irrelevant chatter. Songs were standardised to account for multiple versions; remasters, live recordings, and extended cuts all counted as the same song.
Next, a matching system linked comments to the top 50 Christmas songs, using a mix of exact and fuzzy matching. Contextual checks ensured mentions were about the songs themselves, not just the season.
Finally, sentiment analysis looked at positive and negative emotional words. Comments containing words like annoying, cringe, boring, awful, overplayed and hate were flagged to identify which songs truly irritated listeners. Whilst, it’s good to note that phrases like ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ wouldn’t be counted as positive sentiment due to it being the title of the song.
The result was a neutral, data-driven picture of which Christmas songs people love, which they tolerate, and which they find most annoying.