List of UK Singles Chart Christmas number ones

The official UK Singles Chart began in 1952 after appearing in the New Musical Express;[5] the positions of all songs are based on week end sale totals (from Sunday to Saturday until 2015, then from Friday to Thursday).[6][7] Before 1987 they were released on a Tuesday due to the need for manual calculation.[8] The emergence of a serious contest for the Christmas number-one spot began in 1973, when the glam rock bands Slade and Wizzard deliberately released festive songs in an effort to reach the top of the charts at Christmas, with Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" beating out Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" for the number one spot that Christmas.[2][9] The Christmas number one single was not revealed on Christmas Day itself until 1994.[10]

Since 2002 the Christmas number one has been dominated by reality television contests, with the winners often heading straight to number one in the week before Christmas. This trend began when Popstars: The Rivals contestants released the top three singles on the Christmas chart.[11][nb 1] Between 2005 and 2014, the winners of The X Factor took the number-one spot on seven occasions. In 2007, the X Factor single was such a strong favourite for number one that bookmakers began taking bets on which song would be the "Christmas Number Two" instead.[12] Rage Against the Machine's 1992 single "Killing in the Name" outsold Joe McElderry in 2009 following a successful Facebook campaign against this trend.[13] This made them the first group to get a Christmas number one with a download-only single, and resulted in the most download sales in a single week in UK chart history.[13] Similar campaigns in 2010 promoting acts such as Biffy Clyro, John Cage, and The Trashmen were unsuccessful.[14] The following year, participants from reality television show The Choir outsold X Factor winners Little Mix and a host of social network campaigns for various novelty acts,[15][16] and in 2012, a supergroup cover of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", supporting charities associated with the Hillsborough disaster, took the accolade ahead of The X Factor's James Arthur.[17] Following the UK Charts' move to Fridays,[18] the 2015 Christmas number one was revealed on Christmas Day;[19][20] that year's chart was the first in a decade to not feature the X Factor winner's single in the top two.[21][22]

The Beatles are the only act to have four Christmas number ones, three consecutively starting from 1963. On two occasions, 1963 and 1967, they had both the Christmas number one and the number two, the only act to have achieved this. As part of two acts, George Michael repeated the feat with Band Aid and Wham! in 1984, and Ed Sheeran did so in 2017 with duets with Beyoncé and Eminem. Paul McCartney has been top eight times with various acts. Cliff Richard has spent four Christmasses at number one; two as a solo act, one with The Shadows and one as part of Band Aid II. The Spice Girls later equalled the record of having three consecutive Christmas number ones, from 1996 to 1998. Spice Girl Melanie C achieved a fourth Christmas number one as a member of The Justice Collective in 2012, which also gave Robbie Williams his third.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, which reached the number-one spot at Christmas 1975 and 1991, is the only record to have reached the top twice. "Mary's Boy Child" is the only song to be Christmas number one for two artists (Harry Belafonte in 1957 and Boney M. in 1978), although "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has been Christmas number one for three generations of Band Aid.[23] The original version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is the second best selling single in UK history while "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the third best selling single of all time.[24][25]

• List of UK Singles Chart Christmas number twos
• List of UK Albums Chart Christmas number ones

• Robinson, Peter (10 December 2015). "Drugs, austerity and Thatcher – what Christmas No 1s tell us about Britain". The Guardian.
• Clarkson, Natalie (15 December 2014). "What's the most important factor when making a Christmas number one?". Virgin.