CAROLS: A highlight of December for many is the music of Christmas.

Guinness World Record says the best-selling Christmas single of all time — or at least since the advent of recorded music — is Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.”

“Silent Night” holds the Guinness World Record for being the most recorded Christmas song in history. The numbers speak volumes – with over 733 different versions recorded and counting. It’s been translated into more than 100 languages.

As for popularity, three Christmas songs have made it to the top of the charts. Since the beginning of the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1958, three have made it to Number One — in 1958, “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late!)”, written and performed by Ross Bagdasarian (USA, 1919–72) as his alter ego David Seville, alongside Alvin & The Chipmunks (his virtual band of anthropomorphic rodents), which spent four weeks at No.1; in 2019, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,”co-written with the Grammy-winning producer Walter Afanasieff; and also in 2019, 65 years after it was released, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee hit No.1.

More recently, the vocal stylings of Josh Groban are top sellers.

The biggest-selling Christmas album of the 21st century was baritone singer Groban’s 2007 album Noël, which has been certified 6x multi-platinum (six million units sold) in the US, making it the country’s biggest-selling album of Christmas-themed music by a solo artist or group released in the 21st century.

The various-artists compilation Now That’s What I Call Christmas!, released in 2001 as part of the long-running Now! series, has also been certified 6x multi-platinum by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).