Three Christmas carols about singing Christmas carols: “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!”, “He Is Born”, and “Sing We Now of Christmas”.

A Christmas carol double-header starring angels… many, many angels: “Angels We Have Heard On High” and “Angels From the Realms of Glory”.

Three pop Christmas classics—Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Wham!’s “Last Christmas,” and Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby”—become a surprisingly clear window into three Christmas postures: longing, heartbreak, and greed.

A hymn that asks big questions and then helpfully answers them right in the text, “What Child Is This?” declares that this child is indeed Christ the King, even if it is set to Greensleeves.

A straightforward poem that turned into a French revolutionary anthem, “O Holy Night” is one of the greatest vocal showcases of Advent and also a rich, biblical, bold hymn.

We visit “Silent Night”, the candlelit hymn usually reserved for Christmas Eve, and sit with its quiet picture of Bethlehem’s night—stars, shepherds, and the holy child—letting it invite us right into the story.

Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Silent Night

We turn to two almost-lullabies—“Away in a Manger” and “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly”—simple cradle songs whose easy words and gentle melodies draw us into the humble, lowly nearness of God in a manger.

The Christmas carol version of Micah 5:2, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” puts us in the fields with the shepherds to see the movement of God not just in history but in us.

Originally written for a single church’s Christmas play, “Mary, Did You Know?” is one of the most-covered modern Christmas songs and one of the most deeply Scriptural.

Pentatonix - Mary, Did You Know?

Not every Christmas song is Christian—or even very Christmas. Today we look at two popular December tunes that don’t fit the season: Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and “Happy XMas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.