Jamie Whitehead
Live page editor

History has been made as Last Christmas by Wham! takes the Christmas number one spot for the second year in a row - a feat which has never been achieved before.

And what a brilliant show from Jack and the team as they counted us all the way down to the history-making moment.

Thank you for joining us today. This page was bought to you by Sean Seddon, Asya Robins, Paul Glynn and Mark Savage, with Adam Goldsmith in the studio and edited by myself.

The Radio 1 Official Chart Show was presented by Jack Saunders, edited by Louis Chadwick and produced by Rozeena Bernard, Helena Webb and Amy Johnson.

The pre-show stream was presented by Lilah Parsons and edited by Nathan Visick and Rob Lawrence.

• Our music correspondent, Mark Savage, has more on this year's number one

And for the last time, let's take a look at the official top 10 - which this year included seven Christmas songs.

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

Image source, PA Media

So Wham! win again, but why and how exactly?

Well firstly, the track has benefitted from being heavily promoted by streaming services like Spotify, Apple and Amazon on their top Christmas playlists - the ones you’ve been hearing in shops since mid-October in a thinly-veiled attempt to prize precious pennies from your pockets.

For its 40th anniversary, the song was reissued on CD and 12-inch vinyl for the final week of the chart race, giving it a further boost as people bought presents.

Physical or download sales count for much more than streams in the chart in the digital era.

Chart expert James Masterson recently told the BBC that last year Wham! “filled the void” left by novelty charity-fundraising sausage-roll enthusiast LadBaby - a five-time victor between 2018-22 - who did not release a track.

Last Christmas "won by default" he said, because it appeared at the top of all the Christmas playlists playing "the same old songs, every single year, in much the same order".

It was pushed harder this year at least by a new song by Gracie Abrams, as well as another perennial Christmas hit by Mariah Carey, but still became both the UK's most-streamed - 12.6 million times - and physically-purchased song of the week.

Last Christmas is so popular that it has spawned its own game, Whamageddon, in which players try to go from 1 December until the end of Christmas Eve without hearing the song.

Anyone listening to today’s chart show will now be out of the running. To anyone still in contention, all the best.

Adam Goldsmith
Live reporter, in the Radio 1 studio

That’s a wrap on this year’s Christmas chart - and, as the strains of Last Christmas fade away, I’m on my way out of the studio.

As a lifelong Radio 1 and chart fan, it’s been great to see how the sausage is made, and the team up on the eighth floor are truly brilliant at what they do.

We’ve had tap-dancing, spinning on chairs, and festive singalongs in here, and I hope it’s been the same wherever you’ve followed along.

As I make my way down to the basement, the rest of the team will bring you more reaction to the news of Wham’s second victory on the spin, so stick with us.

Jack Saunders
Presenter, the Official Chart on Radio 1

We do love an occasion on the Official Chart programme and what an occasion today has been.

On its 40th anniversary, Last Christmas secures number one for a second time.

What a rollercoaster it's been. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Adam Goldsmith
Live reporter, in the Radio 1 studio

The vibe has calmed to one of relief as we finally reach the home stretches and Last Christmas echoes through the studio.

I asked Jack and the team how this year’s rundown has been, and they respond that it’s been fairly “typical” of a Christmas chart.

Each year, they say, involves lots of planning and coordinating to ensure interviews are secured - that’s why a few segments today have been pre-recorded before today’s broadcast.

“I’d actually prefer that it was all live," Jack says.

Despite that, the team have enjoyed putting the show together, and are already looking ahead to weeks to come, where the likes of Lola Young might have another chance of securing number one.

Jack Saunders
Presenter, the Official Chart on Radio 1

I spoke to Andrew Ridgeley earlier on, and he was delighted to secure the number one spot again.

He says that streaming has "levelled the playing field" in allowing youngsters to find the song - meaning it's become popular all over again.

Wham! has always been right at the top for the last few years, and he tells me about how he recently revisited the snowy location where the original video was shot.

And before we play his track, he tells me that he doesn't join in with Whamageddon, but admits that he would have been out "extremely early" this year.

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

It’s official. Just like last Christmas, the British pop duo’s 1984 track tops the festive chart becoming the first to do so consecutive years.

The song topped the yuletide singles chart last year, remarkably for the first time since its release in 1984, when the original Band Aid kept it off the number one spot.

It was always going to be the frontrunner again after reclaiming the top spot in the last chart before the Christmas one, as people streamed it to get into the mood.

Wham! singer George Michael died on Christmas day in 2016 but his spirit clearly lives on.

His bandmate Andrew Ridgeley told the Official Charts: “I'm especially pleased for George, he would have been utterly delighted, his fabulous Christmas composition has become such a classic, almost as much a part of Christmas as mince pies, turkey and pigs in blankets.”

He added: "It's testament to a really wonderful Christmas song that in a lot of people's minds evokes and represents Christmas as we would all wish it to be.”

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

Image source, Reuters

Another non-Christmassy number which had topped the chart as recently as this month before being usurped by Wham! only last week.

Her track reigned supreme for five consecutive weeks and put in a worthy challenge against some Christmas classics.

Abrams is the daughter of Star Trek and Star Wars filmmaker JJ Abrams, and today’s chart no doubt confirms her place as the one of the real breakout stars of next year.

Jack Saunders
Presenter, the Official Chart on Radio 1

At number two this year, it's Gracie Abrams.

She's hit a high this year with That's so True, but she can't quite dethrone Wham! who hold the title for another year.

Who'd have thought it?

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

Image source, Reuters

Mariah's slow-burning 1994 anthem was number three last week and that’s where it has remained.

It topped the UK chart for the first time in 2020, returning to the summit in 2022.

Yet despite it being screeched by revellers across the country every December, the unofficial queen of Christmas (her bid to trademark that moniker was denied by US authorities) has still never been at the top of the UK chart in Christmas week itself.

"It was the first Christmas song I ever wrote and I was just thinking about all the things that I really did want at Christmas,” she recently told Rylan in a BBC interview.

“I guess I turned it into, if there's something that you love, it means more than all that stuff."

Stuff like a Christmas number one, I guess.

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

English singer Tom Grennan is up three places, scoring his first top five hit with the soulful, lovelorn It Can't Be Christmas, which is only available via Amazon Music.

Grennan, who actually penned the track in Los Angeles in the summer, said it was a "no-brainer" for him to team up with the streamer to create his own festive song to challenge the usual suspects.

“To everybody that has supported me, wherever you are, thank you for supporting me, you are always gonna be part of my family and a part of my Christmas dream,” said Grennan on Friday.

Jack Saunders
Presenter, the Official Chart on Radio 1

Tom Grennan's charge for number one peaks in fourth place.

He tells me about his tattoo intentions - and says he's planning on getting a picture of the person who tops the chart this year.

At least now he knows that this won't be some artwork of himself.

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

The first of two non-Christmassy songs to make it into this year’s festive top ten.

Blackpink idol Rosé and US pop star Bruno Mars combined on this dancefloor hit.

It marks the K-Pop singer as one to watch for 2025 alongside Lola Young – whose seventh-placed track Messy deserves an honourable mention again here.

Rosé may have inadvertently helped out one of her big Christmas chart rivals with a recent cover of Wham’s Last Christmas, external in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge.

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

Brenda Lee, the first woman entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was just 13-years-old when she recorded the song, now a Christmas standard, in 1958.

It found a new audience by appearing in the 1990 festive film Home Alone. Last year it hit number one in the US Billboard Hot 100 for the first time, making Lee the oldest artist to do so.

Now 80, there seems to be no stopping Lee.

The song was written by Johnny Marks, as Lee noted in an interview with the Guardian , externallast year. “When it became a hit I said to him: ‘Johnny, you’re Jewish, you don’t even believe in Christmas’. He said: ‘Well I do now.’”

An 18-year-old Taylor Swift once described Lee as “grace”, “class” and “composure” personified.

“Brenda Lee is someone I will always look up to because of the way she shines,” she wrote. “As Johnny Cash said in 1983, it’s almost like she’s golden.”

Jack Saunders
Presenter, the Official Chart on Radio 1

Number seven is Messy by Lola Young - and when the Christmas excitement dies down, she might just get her time at the top of the chart.

The same happened with Raye a couple of years ago once the Christmas tunes exited the running.

Now, at six, it's my Christmas favourite...

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

Singer-songwriter Lola Young burst on to the scene in 2022, placing fourth in BBC Radio 1's Sound Of 2022.

Her viral Gen Z anthem, Messy, charting in seventh place here indicates 2025 will be her breakout year.

In a recent interview with Vogue, external, she said: “It is such a wonderful feeling, having something you’ve worked so hard for pay off. I never used to think people listened to my music, but they do.”

Adam Goldsmith
Live reporter, in the Radio 1 studio

Remember, you can tune into watch Jack Saunders as he runs through the top ten in full by pressing Watch above.

I'm loving being in the studio, and I've even earnt my dad Bob a shout out as he puts the Christmas decorations up - he's doing it late, I know.

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

Image source, Getty

First released in 1957, the song is the definition of a Christmas classic, and one of the all-time best-selling Christmas singles.

It’s been covered by everyone from a young Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, to Brenda Lee and Ariana Grande.

But nothing beats the original by the late US country singer.

Paul Glynn
Entertainment & arts reporter

Image source, Reuters

Ariana Grande makes her way into the Christmas top 40 not once, not twice but three times.

Her collaboration with Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo, What Is This Feeling, snuck in at 39, while Defying Gravity from the same film soundtrack finished in 12th place.

But it’s her own festively-themed song Santa Tell Me which confirms its place as a modern Christmas cracker.

The video finds Ariana and friends enjoying a Christmas pyjama party - which reminds me to dig out my own Christmas jumper for this year.

Sean Seddon
Live reporter

Tom Grennan is among those in the running for Christmas number one this year.

It remains to be seen whether he makes the top spot - but either way, you'll be able to hear him performing It Can't Be Christmas on the One Show at 7pm.

We've just heard a snippet of him and his band warming up outside BBC HQ.