‘Tis the season to deck the halls and press play on Christmas music. There’s no shortage of holiday classics and available songs. The problem for some people might be switching it up to get new holiday music into their rotation. Whether that’s the latest releases or just tracks they haven’t heard before.
If you feel stuck with your music collection, I have some suggestions. I’ve been testing and writing about streaming services for more than a decade. No matter which service you use to listen to music, there are plenty of ways to discover new playlists and songs.
How to find Christmas music playlists on YouTube Music
YouTube’s vast catalog can be a double-edged sword. You can just type in “Christmas music” and come up with something to listen to. But there’s always a risk of the audio quality not being great or some other issue with it. Instead, the best place to start is the Music channel, which has several curated playlists—most with over 75 songs.
You can also visit YouTube Music, the company’s streaming service. Its interface is slightly more tailored to listening to music than watching videos—though you can do that too. You also don’t have to subscribe to use it in a web browser, but you will encounter some limitations.
If you’re looking for a fun playlist to start with, I recommend the Lofi Christmas. It has lots of familiar songs redone in chill and relaxing ways.
How to find Christmas music playlists on Apple Music
Apple has a dedicated Holiday section in its Music app. Tapping on the search bar in the iPhone app, you’ll see a list of music genres. From there, you can tap on Holiday.
In the Holiday section, you’ll find the obvious things like playlists, songs, and albums. But you’ll also see curated selections of holiday soundtracks, radio stations, children’s music, and music from other (non-US) countries.
Each year, Apple commissions a couple of artists to do new cover songs for the Carols Covered playlist. This year, Khalid and UMI have joined the collection. In total, there are 40 songs in the playlist, often from rising stars. For example, Tate McRae released her song in 2021.
Discover Christmas music playlists on Spotify
Spotify has its own holiday destination page too. You can get to it by tapping on the Search icon along the bottom of the iPhone app and looking for the Happy Holidays tile in the list of genres.
On the page are curated playlists from every genre and style of music you could want, including a dedicated playlist for Christmas songs released in 2025. One of the more interesting things to try is Spotify’s AI Playlist creation tool.
Create AI playlists with Spotify
(Tyler Hayes)
Tap on the Create icon along the bottom of the iPhone app. From there, you can select AI Playlist and then describe what kinds of music you want to listen to. Get creative. One suggestion: Christmas songs I haven’t heard before.
Listen to Christmas music on Pandora
One reason to turn to Pandora is that the service makes it as easy to start listening to music as turning on an FM radio. Pandora has a holiday landing page that is heavily prioritized with Christmas music. There are a lot of stations with classic holiday tunes, but there are also things like Tiki Christmas and Tropicazo Navideño.
Find Christmas music playlists on Amazon
Amazon Prime Music has a collection of music available for Prime subscribers, including lots of holiday tunes. If you don’t have another service to use or want more control over the music order than a radio station, this might be a good option.
Amazon not only has a holiday hub full of curated playlists and radio stations, but it also has some new and exclusive Christmas songs. Among the original options, you’ll see songs from Kylie Minogue, Gwen Stefani, and Marc Anthony.
If you don’t want to use the Amazon Music app or the website, you can also ask Alexa to play some unique types of mixes. Try asking the speaker to play music for “Baking Christmas cookies,” “Christmas Workout,” or “Ugly Sweater Party.” Those should result in some new music themed to your mood or activity.