It’s not your imagination. The Christmas/holiday music season is getting longer.

It was August 27 when I received my first notification of a brand-new Christmas song for this year. About three weeks later, the first North American radio station flipped to its annual all-holiday music format. Seems extreme, right?

This is all part of a trend that sees Christmas/holiday music starting sooner and sooner each year. Forget the 12 days of Christmas. It’s more like 50, 60, or more. Why? This requires a deep dive.

I quote Chartmetric:

Such mass appeal demonstrates how Christmas is different from other holidays. First of all, the holiday is fully integrated into popular culture: movies, food, and, of course, music. 

Where music from other holidays is essentially prayer put to song, Christmas music has its own pop value. Hence why the idea of the best-selling female artist in history, Mariah Carey, making a Christmas song isn’t just accepted. It’s celebrated. 

[….]

Christmas is a unique holiday in its relationship with music. With so much of it out there from so many different eras and genres, every fan of music can appreciate at least one tune regardless of the season. But one thing that is sure is this music is being enjoyed year-round. So even though November through January is when Christmas music is on repeat, and even though Christmas is technically only one day, Christmas can last as long as anyone wants.

Let’s look at just one example. This Chartmetric graphic looks at the annual rise of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

Now let’s widen things out to a few more Christmas-related songs. Note the trends.