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Whether you’re trimming the tree, wrapping gifts or herding reindeer, listening to holiday tunes can get you into the spirit of the season faster than you can say “Rudolph”. Finding holiday tunes is easier than ever this year, once you know where to look. These tech tools can help you find holiday tunes whether you want to listen to the classics or discover some new favorites.
On Monday you saw holiday images on Pinterest to get you in a festive mood: Celebrate the Holidays with Pinterest!. Today you can listen to classic and contemporary holiday music to make your season jolly!
Spotify
Spotify has lots of holiday playlists to help you rock your holiday tunes. Check out these contemporary and classic playlists on Spotify to enjoy holiday music:
Trans-Siberian Orchestra Lost Christmas Eve
Here’s a playlist you can listen to as you peruse this article:
Spotify also has a treat for you this holiday season. Spotify’s mobile apps have been updated so you can now listen to Spotify music on the go for free. With the updates apps you can listen to your playlists and playlists from people you follow. You can also listen to songs from a single artist instead of having to shuffle through songs from other artists.
Spotify apps are available free for:
iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch
Android devices
Additionally, Spotify has expanded to 20 new markets, for a total of 55 markets worldwide. Spotify also announced earlier this month that the entire Led Zeppelin catalogue will be available exclusively on Spotify.
You can give a Spotify gift card that can be used towards a Premium membership at Spotify. Spotify Gift Card.
See, guest author Jens Berget’s article, The 10 Real Reasons Why I Love Spotify for a full review of Spotify.
iTunes
If you have a computer, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you can listen to holiday music in your iTunes Library or using iTunes Radio.
Siri
Use Siri to play holiday songs from your iTunes library. Raise your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to your mouth and say, “Play holiday music.” Siri will find songs in those categories on your device and play them shuffled.
Tap “Show Now Playing” to see what tunes are playing. You can create a Genius Playlist, turn off Shuffle or turn Repeat on/off.
Genres
iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Open iTunes on your iDevice, click on “More” in the bottom menu => Genres => Holiday. iTunes will show you all of your music in the holiday genre.
Computer
Open iTunes => Click Music in the left column => Click Genre in the top menu. Scroll down to “Holiday” to see all of your music in your iTunes Library in the Holiday genre.
iTunes Radio
iTunes Radio has holiday songs for you to stream for free. You can listen to iTunes Radio on your iDevice from iTunes on your iDevice or on your computer.
iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Open iTunes on your iDevice and click Radio on the bottom menu or you can open iTunes Radio on your iDevice using Siri with the command “Open iTunes Radio.”
Tap the + icon titled “New Station” and search for “Holiday” or “Christmas” on the next screen.
Computer
Open iTunes => Click Music in the left column => Click Radio in the top menu. Click on the + icon next to “My Stations” and search for “Holiday” or “Christmas” in the pop-up window.
Or click on iTunes Store in the left column and click Holiday Radio on the iTunes Store home page to listen to holiday tunes.
You can choose from different genre stations, including:
- Children’s Christmas Holiday Sing-a-Long
- Holiday Hits
- Holiday Classics
- Latin Holiday
- Soulful Holiday
- Rockin’ Holiday
- The Sounds of Christmas
- Chill Out Holiday
Pandora
Pandora Radio is another fertile source of free holiday music. Check out Pandora Holiday Music for a full list of holiday music stations on Pandora. Choose from stations such as:
- Michael Bublé Holiday
- Smooth Jazz Christmas
- Soulful Holidays
- Peaceful Holidays
- R&B and Pop Christmas
- Tropical Holidays
You can also get a Pandora gift card for the music lover on your list: Pandora gift card. Pandora premium ad-free subscriptions are $36/year.
See, Pandora: Music to Your Ears? for a full review.
Sirius/XM Satellite Radio
Sirius/XM Satellite Radio has launched commercial-free radio stations for its listeners that will play holiday music continuously:
Holiday Traditions channel 4 – traditional holiday music from the ’40s through the ’60s by artists such as Andy Williams, Ray Conniff, Bing Crosby and Nat “King” Cole. Available until December 31 at 3:00 am ET.
Holly channel 17 – contemporary holiday music as well as traditional favorites, including songs by Kelly Clarkson, Josh Groban, Michael Bublé, Mariah Carey, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Colbie Caillat, Whitney Houston and the cast of Glee. Available until December 31 at 3:00 am ET
Holiday Pops channel 75 – classical Christmas carols and other holiday favorites by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Boston Pops, Luciano Pavarotti, The New York Philharmonic, King’s College Choir and Thomas Hampson. Available until December 26 at 3:00 am ET
Country Christmas channel 58 – country Christmas music from contemporary artists as well as classic country artists, including Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood and Lady Antebellum. Available until December 26 at 3:00 am ET
Navidad channel 756 – contemporary Latin holiday music and with traditional classics, including Jose Feliciano, Willie Colon, Gloria Estefan, Marco Antonio Solis, El Gran Combo and Thalia. Available until January 7 at 3:00 am ET
Holiday Soul channel 49 – classic soul and Motown holiday music from the ’60s and ’70s as well as R&B from the ’80s and ’90s including Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Dionne Warwick, The Four Tops, The Supremes, The O’Jays, James Brown, The Temptations, Lou Rawls and Toni Braxton. Available until December 26 at 3:00 am ET
Your Thoughts
Do you enjoy listening to holiday music to make the season bright? How do you listen to holiday tunes? What are some of your favorites? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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* Music Notes image courtesy of Francesca Special K (edited)
Hi Carolyn,
I love to listen music. It is my favorite pass time, weather it is holiday time or I am busy with daily schedule. I make time to listen tracks. Holiday and festivals are special occasions that is celebrated with the music indeed.
Thanks for sharing this list. It is awesome 🙂
Hi Vipin, If you like holiday music you will love these different ways to listen to it. I had fun discovering new favorites while I was researching this article!
Enjoy and happy holidays, Vilpin!
Good one!!
Thanks, Carlo! Happy holidays! (*)
Hi Carolyn
I like holiday music now we’re almost at Christmas. I don’t like it when I go in a shop in November and they’re playing Christmas carols though!
I hadn’t realised that Spotify now had a free option. I just downloaded it to my iPhone and I’m going to put some music on.
I’m not sure if the other two options are available in the UK. Still, one out of three isn’t bad :-).
Enjoy the rest of your week Carolyn.
Tim
Hi Tim, Good news! iTunes Radio is due to come to the UK in early 2014: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-07/apple-said-to-expand-itunes-radio-to-u-k-before-pandora.html
You can use the suggestions in the article to listen to holiday tunes in your iTunes library while you’re waiting for Pandora and iTunes Radio to come to the UK. A lot of these issues have to do with the different copyright laws in various regions of the globe. A worldwide copyright clearance service would benefit artists, businesses and listeners alike!
Hi Carolyn,
I should have read this earlier, but I have been so busy. I wanted Christmas music for my visitors. Fei, you might remember I featured wearing her traditional Chinese dress some time ago. She came to visit on Monday with her French boyfriend. I have put a Christmas tree up and decorations, but forgot music. They were happy with Japanese food, cooked by a Filipino and the television which they don’t have. That was cooking a Christmas turkey and Chinese food too. I am planning on plugging in my speakers from my desktop computer into my laptop for some music. I suppose I could do that with my phone!
Hi Mike, Yes, I wanted to publish this earlier but it’s difficult to cover all of the great tech out there! But I’m glad you now have learned of some new sources for Christmas music.
Yes, you could either use your speakers on your phone or your computer. You can test both to see which gives you the best sound.
Merry Christmas, Mike!
I have been using iTunes on my Tab from a long time; I need to try Stopify on my PC! 🙂
Hi Zainil, I think you’ll really enjoy Spotify. Give it a go and let us know what you think!
Hi Carolyn,
You know me. I’m listening to Spotify all the time. I listen to it while I’m working, while I’m cooking dinner and while I’m washing the dishes. At the moment, I’m listening to the top tracks in Norway and many of the tracks are Christmas songs and many of them are fairly old. They become popular again when it’s Christmas. I really enjoy listening to Christmas songs, it gets me in the right mood for the holidays.
– Jens
Hi Jens, Thank you so very much again for the amazing Spotify article you wrote for The Wonder of Tech. At the time, Spotify had recently arrived in the US and I knew you would be a great person to write the article as Europe had had Spotify available for a long time and you were a big fan.
I’m so glad you’re continuing to be an ardent Spotify fan. The more I use Spotify the more I enjoy it. I also like how I can embed Spotify playlists in my articles. More fun for Wonder of Tech readers!
Yes, music is a wonderful way to get into the Christmas spirit. Merry Christmas to you and your family, Jens!
I don’t particularly listen to any music (apart from soundtracks…).
I suppose I like instrumental music more than songs? (I definitely don’t hate human voice :P).
But, thanks for the resources, anyways. My mom likes to listen to a lot of music, perhaps this could be useful for her 🙂
Hope you are having a good week!
Hi Jeevan, You’re not alone, there are some people who don’t like music. But thank you for sharing this with your mother!
Wonderful piece of article. Thank you Carolyn. Happy Holidays!!
Thank you kindly, Abir. Happy holidays to you too!