When Esther asked me to write about Christmas music, I cringed. My taste in music is a bit of an embarrassment, and I'm afraid that's even more reflected in my Christmas music collection, since it's harder to camouflage the blushworthy stuff in the smaller pool.

But here goes. I own thirteen Christmas CDs (that I could find). I decided to look through the little stack and see what songs made multiple appearances. Perhaps in someone else's collection the Christmas songs would make more of a showing, but in mine the most popular of them topped out at three appearances each:

As for carols, three appearances is the least worth mentioning:

With four appearances, we have:

Showing up five times:

An unsurprising six times:

(Really, Josh Groban? No O Holy Night??)

But most impressively, twelve times out of thirteen:

I think we have a clear winner. Professor Google seems to agree that Silent Night is the most recorded carol, being known to have been attempted by over 300 artists, with the caveat that it's not proven that another song hasn't been recorded by more. Who wants to go dig up the truth?

My favorite songs are the less popular ones, unsurprisingly, since I haven't had the chance to overhear them so much. But really? I just love all Christmas music. Bring it on. (Except the guilt-trip music. Please don't bring that on.)