“O Holy Night” was found to be the most popular carol, while two versions of “In the Bleak Midwinter” appeared in the top five, as shown below.

Note that in the list below, carols with equal votes are listed in the same position and are separated by an = sign.

Top 30 carols

1. O Holy Night
2. Silent Night
3. In the Bleak Midwinter (Harold Edwin Darke version)
4. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
5. In the Bleak Midwinter (Gustav Holst version)
6. O Come All Ye Faithful
7. O Come, O Come Emmanuel
8. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
9. Once in Royal David’s City
10. O Little Town of Bethlehem
11. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
12. In Dulci Jubilo
13. Sussex Carol
14. Ding Dong! Merrily on High
15. Gabriel’s Message
16. See Amid the Winter’s Snow
17. Shepherd’s Pipe Carol
18. Away in a Manger
19. Candlelight Carol
20. Angels from the Realms of Glory
21. Good King Wenceslas
22. Coventry Carol
23. Angel’s Carol
24. What Sweeter Music = Sans Day Carol
25. The Holly and the Ivy
26. Joy to the World = Infant Holy, Infant Lowly
27. Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
28. The Three Kings
29. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night = Cherry Tree Carol = The Infant King = Nativity Carol = Carol of the Bells
30. Rocking Carol = Mary’s Lullaby

What is your favorite Christmas carol? Comments are welcome!

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These stations are ideal for playing during Christmas parties because you won’t have to keep changing your tapes or CDs! Also, they provide very mixed selections of music.

Click the logos or links to listen to the radio stations.

Sky Radio – The Christmas Station

Sky Radio – The Christmas Station is one of my favorite Christmas radio stations. It is provided by one of the most popular radio stations of the Netherlands, “Sky Radio 101 FM”. This Christmas radio station is available online every year from around the beginning of October until just after Christmas.

This station plays a mixture of traditional and contemporary Christmas songs by famous international artists of the last few decades. The vast majority of the songs are in the English language. Once you have the player open, if you click “Bekijk de playlist” you will see the current playlist. Music is played non-stop apart from the odd radio jingle and a brief, approximately 1 minute long, summary (in Dutch) of the main news every hour on the hour.

Chroma Radio XMAS

Chroma Radio XMAS is an online Greek Christmas radio station. There seem to be no breaks whatsoever. There is an amazing mix of Christmas music here. While there are songs sung by famous international artists (e.g., Cliff Richard, Eric Johnson, and Barbra Streisand), there are also instrumental (e.g., Celtic) Christmas tracks.

Big R Radio Network

Big R Radio Network (based near Seattle, U.S.A.) hosts several Christmas radio stations. Click the logo on the right to go to their website or click one of the links below to listen to one of their Christmas stations.

• Rockin Christmas
• Top 40 Christmas
• Christmas Classics
• Christmas Country

AccuHolidays

AccuHolidays is part of the website AccuRadio, a multichannel Internet radio station. AccuHolidays itself features a wide selection of channels that all play Christmas music. Each channel plays a different style of Christmas music so there will definitely be something for everyone. Moreover, the site adds a new Christmas channel every day during its “Countdown to Christmastime”!

Click the logo (above right) to go to their website or click here to listen to their main Christmas channel.

Winds through the olive trees
Softly did blow,
’Round little Bethlehem
Long, long ago.

Sheep on the hillside lay
Whiter than snow;
Shepherds were watching them,
Long, long ago.

Then from the happy sky,
Angels bent low,
Singin their songs of joy,
Long, long ago.

For in a manger bed,
Cradled we know,
Christ came to Bethlehem,
Long, long ago.

- Author Unknown

Click on the reindeer to add extra sounds and voices to the song! Click on the reindeer again to remove any sounds you don’t like! This interactive musical animation will be really fun for young children!

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Reports on the history of the creation of the carol are conflicting. The following is one of the most popular explanations. The original French words were written in 1847 (some resources say 1843) by the French amateur poet Placide Cappeau (a resident of Roquemaure, France), who was apparently asked by his local priest to write a poem for Christmas mass. For inspiration, Cappeau used the gospel of Luke to help him imagine the scene of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. He wrote his poem about this over the course of several days and named it “Minuit, Chrétiens” (Midnight, Christians). Cappeau was so pleased with his poem that he decided to ask his composer friend Adolphe Charles Adam to write some music for it. Adam’s musical composition for the poem pleased both Cappeau and the priest, and the song was named “Cantique de Noël” (Canticle of Christmas). It was performed three weeks later at midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

“Cantique de Noël” was initially warmly welcomed by the French clergy. The song was rapidly incorporated as a Christmas carol into various Catholic Christmas services. However, the combination of Cappeau walking away from the church and becoming a part of the socialist movement, and the discovery that Adam was a Jew (he may not have been), resulted in the church suddenly denouncing the carol. They claimed that it was unfit for church services, due to its lack of musical taste and “total absence of the spirit of religion”. Despite the clergy trying to abolish the carol, the French public continued to sing it.

In 1855, the carol was translated to and published in English by American Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight, editor of Dwight’s Journal of Music. He named the carol “O Holy Night”. Both Cappeau and Dwight held strong anti-slavery views and this is evident in the third verses of both the French and English lyrics (see below for the English lyrics). The carol rapidly became popular in America, especially in the North during the Civil War, probably due to the relevant lyrics of the third verse.

Back in France, “Cantique de Noël” was still popular, despite it having been banned by the church almost twenty years earlier. It has been said, but not proven, that on Christmas Eve 1870, in the middle of the Franco-Prussian War, a French soldier suddenly sprang up from his trench and sang “Cantique de Noël.” In response, a German infantryman climbed out of his hiding place and sang Martin Luther’s carol “Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her’” (From Heaven Above to Earth I Come). Apparently, the soldiers of both sides stopped flighting for the next twenty-four hours in honour of Christmas day. This touching story is suspected to have played a part in the French church once again welcoming the carol “Cantique de Noël”.

The final noteworthy event in the history of “O Holy Night” took place on Christmas Eve, 1906. In Ocean Bluff-Brant Rock, Massachusetts, Reginald Fessenden, a university professor and former chemist for Thomas Edison, did something that had long been thought impossible. Fessenden used a new type of transmitter to conduct the first radio program broadcast. His broadcast included Handel’s “Largo”, which was played on an Ediphone phonograph, and “O Holy Night”, which he personally played on his violin (he sang along to the last verse as he played). He also read some passages from the Bible. “O Holy Night” is therefore one of the first pieces of music to have ever been sent through the air via radio waves.

“O Holy Night/Cantique de Noël” is now an extremely popular Christmas carol. It has been sung by many world-famous celebrities, including Celine Dion, Luciano Pavarotti, Il Divo, and Mariah Carey. It was also sung beautifully by a choir in the 1990 Christmas movie Home Alone. Click the Amazon box below for samples of these and several other beautiful versions of the song.

The English lyrics, as written by Dwight, are as follows:

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels’ voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night divine.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, To our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Behold your King.

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.

Several other, more literal English translations of the original French text, can be found, but Dwight’s wording remains the most popular today.

The history of how the carol came to be is rather interesting. Austrian priest Father Josef Mohr composed the lyrics of “Stille Nacht” as a poem in 1816, possibly whilst in Mariapfarr in the Lungau region of the Austrian province of Salzburg. On December 24^th 1818, he and the Austrian organist Franz Xaver Gruber were at the St. Nicola church in Oberndorf preparing for Christmas Eve mass. Mohr showed Gruber his poem and asked if he could write a fitting melody for two solo voices together with choir and a guitar accompaniment. As Mohr liked the composition that Gruber came up with, they performed the carol that evening at Christmas mass. Mohr sang the tenor part and played the guitar, while Gruber sang bass.

The reason behind the creation of the song has been the subject of great speculation! According to Austria’s Silent Night Society, it could have been a broken church organ that caused Mohr and Gruber to create a song for accompaniment by guitar. By contrast, some historians think that Mohr simply wanted a new Christmas carol that he could play using his guitar. Whatever the reason behind the song, it quickly became popular worldwide. So far, the carol has been translated into over 300 languages!

In English, and most likely in other languages too, the lyrics of the song vary. The most common English version is shown below:

Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin Mother and Child.
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night,
Shepherds quake at the sight;
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born.

Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love’s pure light;
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.