As Christmas is just around the corner, I thought I would take a look at the charts each decade ago to see what they looked like at Christmas time. I begin with 1956 and will jump a decade each post up to 2016.
The Christmas number one of 1956 was "Just Walkin In The Rain" by Johnnie Ray. Although not a Christmas song, one could argue that its more relevant to Christmas than songs about snowmen etc given its more likely to rain at Christmas than snow. Johnnie Ray wouldn't have had Christmas number one in mind when he released it though given it was released in early October and had been at number one since mid November.
In terms of actual Christmas songs, there were two of them in Christmas week.
First up was "Christmas Island" by Dickie Valentine. Having already had a fairly successful chart career, Dickie Valentine reached the peak the previous year with the first Christmas number one which was actually about Christmas, "Christmas Alphabet". This was actually his first hit since that previous Christmas and whilst not as successful, it still reached a respectable number 8. He would wait another year until his next hit which was yet another Christmas song, "Snowbound For Christmas" . This didn't do so well, peaking at number 28 and spending just one week on the charts.
The other Christmas record was "Christmas and You" by Dave King. This only peaked at number 23 and would be the lowest charting of his four singles.
It's probably fair to say both records haven't stood the test of time and had probably already been forgotten by 1957, fortunately we now have the internet to revive them.
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