Tuneonmusic research · November 2026
The Christmas songs the world wants to play on piano
We counted the piano searches for 32 Christmas songs in 10 countries. One carol wins almost everywhere, Charlie Brown rules America, and the UK picks Wham! over Mariah.
- 45,220 piano searches a month
- 32 songs
- 10 countries
Five things the searches say
- 7/10
Carol of the Bells wins
A 1914 Ukrainian folk chant beats Jingle Bells to first place in 7 of 10 countries. Jingle Bells holds on in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
- 75%
Carols beat pop
Three of every four searches are for traditional carols. The most-searched pop song, All I Want for Christmas Is You, ranks only 4th.
- #3
The Peanuts effect
In the United States, Linus and Lucy is the third Christmas song people want to play, ahead of Silent Night. Outside North America almost nobody searches for it.
- 490 v 400
The UK picks Wham!
British pianists search for Last Christmas more than for All I Want for Christmas Is You. Every other country prefers Mariah.
- 11.7
Canada plays the most
- Canada 11.7
- Ireland 10.6
- United Kingdom 10.1
- Australia 8.9
- United States 8.0
- New Zealand 5.8
Searches a month per 100,000 people.
The top 10, country by country
Pick a country. Carols you can learn free on Tuneonmusic have a play button.
Across all 10 countries, Carol of the Bells leads with 11,910 searches a month, 27% more searches than Jingle Bells. Traditional carols make up 75% of the searches, and the first modern song is All I Want for Christmas Is You at number 4.
Traditional carol Modern song (in copyright)
Each country's favourite
Carol of the Bells takes seven countries. Tap one to see its top five.
- Carol of the Bells is number 1
- Jingle Bells is number 1
Where two countries disagree
Pick any two countries. The steeper the line, the bigger the disagreement.
Biggest gap: Linus and Lucy, number 3 in the United States and number 20 in the United Kingdom.
Each line is a song in either country's top 10. Steeper means the two countries disagree more.
Where each song is loved
Each cell is the song's share of that country's Christmas piano searches. Tap a country to sort by it.
| Song | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carol of the Bells | 25 | 28 | 29 | 24 | 38 | 23 | 41 | 44 | 33 | 22 |
| Jingle Bells | 19 | 22 | 16 | 33 | 21 | 42 | 35 | 37 | 30 | 24 |
| Silent Night | 6 | 9 | 10 | 8 | 11 | 6 | 12 | 4 | 6 | 7 |
| All I Want for Christmas Is You | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 10 | · | 2 | 4 | 15 |
| Linus and Lucy | 7 | 1 | 4 | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | · |
| We Wish You a Merry Christmas | 3 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 10 | 11 |
| Last Christmas | 3 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 6 | · | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | · | · | 2 | 4 |
| O Holy Night | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Christmas Time Is Here | 4 | · | 3 | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | · |
| Deck the Halls | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | · | · | · | 1 | 1 | · |
| Joy to the World | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | · | · | · | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 | · | · | · | · | 2 |
| White Christmas | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | · | · | · | · | 2 |
| The First Noel | 2 | · | 1 | · | · | · | · | 1 | 1 | · |
| Frosty the Snowman | 2 | 1 | 2 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
17 of these carols are free to play
Every arrangement comes with a PDF, audio, MIDI and the play-along piano.
- Carol of the Bells BeginnerAdvanced
- Jingle Bells BeginnerAdvanced
- Silent Night BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
- O Holy Night Intermediate
- Deck the Halls BeginnerIntermediate
- Joy to the World BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
- The First Noel BeginnerIntermediate
- Away in a Manger BeginnerIntermediate
- God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen BeginnerIntermediate
- Hark! The Herald Angels Sing Intermediate
- O Christmas Tree BeginnerIntermediateAdvanced
- O Come, All Ye Faithful BeginnerIntermediate
- In the Bleak Midwinter BeginnerIntermediate
- Good King Wenceslas BeginnerIntermediate
- O Little Town of Bethlehem BeginnerIntermediate
- The Twelve Days of Christmas Beginner
All Christmas carols · Teaching a Christmas concert? Plan the programme
Use this study
Free to quote and republish with a credit link. Questions or a custom cut of the data: use our contact page.
Key facts
Carol of the Bells is the Christmas song people most want to learn on piano: it is first in 7 of the 10 countries studied.
75% of Christmas piano searches are for traditional carols, not pop hits.
Linus and Lucy, the Peanuts theme, is the number 3 Christmas piano song in the United States and barely searched anywhere else (88% of its searches are American).
In the UK, Wham!'s Last Christmas (490 searches a month) beats Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You (400).
Canada searches for Christmas songs on piano more than any other country we studied, with 11.7 searches a month per 100,000 people.
Downloads
Cite
Tuneonmusic (2026), "The Christmas songs the world wants to play on piano", https://tuneonmusic.com/research/christmas-piano-songs/<a href="https://tuneonmusic.com/research/christmas-piano-songs/">Tuneonmusic Christmas piano study</a>Embed the chart
<a href="https://tuneonmusic.com/research/christmas-piano-songs/"><img src="https://tuneonmusic.com/research/christmas-piano-songs-2026.png" alt="The 10 Christmas songs people most want to play on piano, by monthly searches (Tuneonmusic, 2026)" width="1200" height="630" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>How we did it
Where do the numbers come from?
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, average monthly search volume, pulled on 28 October 2026. For each of 32 songs we added up three English phrasings ("… piano", "… piano sheet music", "how to play … on piano") in each country. Average monthly volume is a 12-month average, so the real December peak is several times higher; the ranking between songs is what the study compares.
Why these 10 countries?
They are the countries where people search for Christmas songs in English. Per-capita figures are given only for the six where English is the main search language; in India, the Philippines, South Africa and Singapore much of the searching happens in other languages, so a per-person figure would undercount them.
Can I use the data and the chart?
Yes. The CSV and the chart are free to use in articles and lessons. Please credit Tuneonmusic and link to this page.
Why are some songs not on Tuneonmusic?
We only publish free sheet music for works in the public domain. 17 of the carols in this study have free arrangements on the site; the modern songs, from White Christmas to All I Want for Christmas Is You, are still under copyright, so they appear here only as data.