a ranking of the songs on the Christmas pop Spotify playlist

If you're my friend or had the unique pleasure of dating, you know that I’m a Christmas girlie at heart. Since I’m light on any thoughtful insights into what I’ve consumed lately and don’t feel like churning out another bad story about gay men in bad relationships, I’m going for a Christmas consumption-themed week baby.

The Christmas Pop playlist on Spotify has 90 songs, so I’m not going to rank all of the songs. Instead, I’ll break it up into two categories: my top 15 songs and the songs that suck the most.

The 10 best songs on the pop Christmas playlist

1. Santa Tell Me | Ariana GrandeOne point on the trifecta of pop Christmas songs. You need this song because it redefined the modern pop Christmas genre, without it you wouldn’t have the base to build out the rest of the playlist.

2. Underneath the Tree | Kelly ClarksonAgain, there’s no way to even build a pop Christmas playlist without this song. It’s good enough to be heard multiple times over a department store speaker or to only listen to once a season: your pick!

3. All I Want for Christmas is You | Mariah CareyThe sounding horn for the Christmas girlies. This song signifies the true start of the holiday season. The first time you hear it you’re obligated to start decorating.

4. Rockin’ Round the Christmas Tree | Brenda LeeYou have to respect the history of Christmas music and Rockin’ Round the Christmas Tree is such a staple you have to include it. It’s not profound but it fits perfectly for a made-for-TV movie and for playing in the background of your company holiday party.

5. Last Christmas | Wham!Entire dissertations could be written about Last Christmas. A one-hit wonder that somehow transformed the entire holiday industry. It’s a song that can be inaudible in the background of your family’s Christmas party or played profoundly at your small Friendsmas party when everyone’s had too many cups of mulled wine and is contemplating stopping but also having another. Because, fuck it, it’s Christmas after all and they don’t have anywhere to go except home, which is pretty far away and now a lot colder and emptier after their partner of 5+ years broke up with you and moved to LA to chase their dream of being an actor. But you’re not like bitter about it, it was totally mutual, but you think often about texting them and telling them how much you miss them as a friend and wish you could put things behind you and form a deep, long-lasting friendship that makes both of you respect the myriad ways that love can exist, independent of a romantic framework. But you don’t because you know, somewhere deep inside of you that they wouldn’t respond anyway. And also because, even though you suspect there’s a part of them that does miss your friendship, it’s too awkward to have spent 6-7 years with someone, not see them for however long then suddenly come back and pretend like there’s not hurt and fear and longing all mixed into a complicated Gordian Knot of regret, remorse, and nostalgia. Plus, you can’t reach out because even though it was totally mutual, it really was more like less mutual on your side, but just by a little bit, and now to reach back out and admit you have lost something leaves you too vulnerable and forces you to lose some deep part of yourself that you just can’t give up. Maybe it’s respect or pride or something similar to that, but all you know is that after giving away so much of yourself you can’t give that away. So instead of texting you have another cup of mulled wine1 and try to make out any sound in a crowded bar but since you’re half-deaf anyway in a noisy and packed house you’re functionally deaf, not able to make out where sound is coming from which disorients you when you’re already tipsy and struggling to keep up wright. After trying for a while you end the night by making plans with some guy you’ve been talking to for a while but it’s not official or anything and ask him to come pick you up because you can’t drive. So he comes over in his beater of a car that churns and groans when you try to start it and the two of you make small talk and laugh and share another drink at his apartment before making out and falling asleep in his bed.

6. You Make it Feel Like Christmas | Gwen Stefani, Blake SheltonWithout this song, we’d have nothing to play over the end credits of Christmas movies. And honestly, I like it, idk.”Sweet gingerbread made with molassesMy heart skipped and I reactedCan't believe that this is happeningLike a present sent from God” Is a GOOD lyric

7. My Only Wish (This Year) | Britney SpearsYou should always include a Britney song when possible :)

8. Christmas Without You | Ava MaxIDK why, i just kinda like this one.

9. What Christmas Means to Me | HansonYou gotta have this song because without it Christmas movies wouldn't have an ending credits song

10. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas | Sam SmithI’m not a huge Sam Smith fan, though I do think a lot of what’s written about him being bad is just like thinly veiled homophobia and fatphobia. Gays especially like to rag on him for writing sexual songs and then not being a smooth hairless muscle twink2. But I do think he sings one of the best versions of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas I’ve ever heard. One that’s full of gay longing, perfect for those nights when you’re just huddled under a blanket with your partner sipping hot chocolate while a velcro pug sits on your lap snoring.

11. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year | Kylie MinogueLook it’s a great cover by a great person, no notes.

12. Make it to Christmas | Alessia CaraIf you're not midway through December, in a satisfying and emotionally healthy relationship but still longingly thinking about the end of the year and how someone could leave you at any point in time, what are you even doing?

13. Glittery | Kacey Musgraves and Troye SivanI’ll go on record and say I don’t think that Glittery is the best song from Kacey Musgraves’ Christmas album. That honor goes to Present Without a Bow (not the version from her Netflix even though that’s a good one too). But, if you need a second choice that’s appealing to modern sensibilities you got to choose Glittery. Too many Christmas playlists focus on poppy and upbeat songs, but midway through the night when everyone is slightly drunk at your friendsmas, they need a song that’s both poppy but a little nostalgic.

14. Do You Hear What I Hear | Whitney HoustonLook, you can’t escape the Christian ties to Christmas, even if they make no sense. If you have to have a Christian song on the list the least you can do is have it be by an iconic voice like Whitney Houston.

15. Santa Baby | Ariana GrandeWhat an odd little song. Santa Baby does that weird thing where someone uses a baby voice to sound sexy, but at least Ariana’s version is upfront about it.

The 10 worst songs on the pop Christmas playlist

1. Happy X-Mas (War is Over) | John Lennon & Yoko OnoI’m not dumb enough to hold the incel-adjacent belief that Yoko Ono was the cause of the Beatles division but do firmly hold the position that a song like Happy X-Mas (War is Over) is the reason why John Lennon was shot.

2. Wonderful Christmas Time | Paul McCarthyA trend is emerging where former Beatles make the worst possible Christmas songs. Wonderful Christmas Time by be a good song if you heard it once, but this played at least 12 times a minute when I worked at Old Navy over the holidays. Unlike the top 10 songs that work really well for a department store, hearing this over and over again while re-folding holiday sweaters feels like a particularly kafkaesque Christmas torture.

3. Hallelujah | PentatonixFirst of all, Pentatonix should not exist. Second of all, Halleluja is NOT a Christmas song, if anything it’s a pride month song.

4. Holly Jolly Christmas | Michael BubléListen, I’m not going to pretend like Michael Bublé doesn’t sing this song exactly how it should be sung. But that’s the core problem of Holly Jolly Christmas. It doesn’t expand the genre, it doesn’t add a festive twist, and it’s just a straightforward song that’s meant to be sung by some white dude with little else to offer the world.

5. Cozy Little Christmas | Katy PerryI’m surprised this song didn’t also kill a nun

6. Wrap Me Up | Jimmy Fallon and Meghan TrainorThe world does not need Meghan Trainor and Jimmy Fallon to ever collaborate again.

7. Christmas Tree Farm | Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift is probably a good lyricist like 40% - 55% of the time, be the other times, yeeesh.

8. You’re a Mean One Mr. GrinchThe Grinch is a Christmas staple and it’s a cute fun story and a pretty cute animated movie too. However, Grinch culture has gotten out of hand so, in protest You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch has to be on the bad songs list. Seriously, a thing grown adults are now doing is hiring people to come to their house dressed like The Grinch and destroy things or mess things up to scare or surprise their children! Grinch culture is what happens with Spooky girlies who waste the last bit of their mass-market-supplied endorphins buying a twenty-five-foot skeleton or Pumpkin that calls himself Steve and spend the rest of the season coming down from the high of Halloween.

9. Kid on Christmas | PentatonixWe don’t need Pentatonix!

10. Please Santa Please | PentatonixIn my best Joan Crawford voice and makeup screaming “NO PENTATONIX.” In all seriousness, though the problem with these types of Christmas songs is they make the fatal mistake of sort of just layering sound on top of sound on top of sound till you get a jumbled mess of bells and chorus and vocals that just feel oppressive, not jolly.