Image source, Getty Images

Wham's Last Christmas has topped the Christmas chart for the first time since it was first released 39 years ago.

It's not the first time the song has made it to the number one spot - it got there in January 2021, but was held off the top spot in 1984 by Do They Know It's Christmas?

Sam Ryder finished as this year's runner-up, with his song You're Christmas To Me coming in at number two and Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas taking third place.

After Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan died last month, his wife Victoria Mary Clarke said Fairytale of New York "absolutely should" make it to number one this year - but it wasn't to be: it's charted at number six.

After the announcement, Wham! founding member Andrew Ridgeley called Last Christmas finally getting to number one a "fantastic achievement", saying the song distills the spirit of Christmas in audio form.

We'll be closing this page shortly - your editors were Jamie Whitehead and Laura Gozzi. You can read our full story here, and don't forget to test your knowledge of Christmas hits by clicking through to our Christmas Number Ones quiz.

Thanks for following along with us this afternoon - it's been fun!

If you're just joining us and fancy a recap of the ten songs that have topped this year's Christmas chart, here it is. Spoiler: only two are not Christmas-themed...

1. Last Christmas - Wham!

1. You’re Christmas To Me - Sam Ryder
2. All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
3. Stick Season - Noah Kahan
4. Merry Christmas - Ed Sheeran & Sir Elton John
5. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
6. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
7. Lovin On Me - Jack Harlow
8. It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Michael Buble
9. Merry Christmas Everyone - Shakin’ Stevens

Image source, gett

We've analysed every song that has ever topped the charts at Christmas - but how much do you know about UK Christmas number ones?

Click on the link below to test your knowledge, then dazzle friends and family at the Christmas dinner table with these festive facts.

Find the quiz here!

Image source, Steve Stunt

Steve Stunt from the George Michael Appreciation Society of Bushey, Hertfordshire said Last Christmas making it to number one was "a brilliant, poignant posthumous gift for George".

Michael died on Christmas Day 2016 at the age of 53.

He formed Wham! in the 1980s with Andrew Ridgeley after the pair met at Bushey Meads School sixth-form.

Steve has been a "lifelong fan" of Wham! and said he was "slightly devastated" when Last Christmas didn't get to number one in 1984.

"There was good reason of course, because of Band Aid, but we deserve this.

"We've got to be the most patient fans for waiting 39 years," he added.

He said the news brought mixed emotions for fans: "It is touching - and there will be elation".

Tracey Wills, who founded the George Michael Appreciation Society, said: "Because George passed at Christmas, it is quite an emotional thing for the song to be number one.

"George will be looking down on us all and be very happy."

The Global Story

The chart countdown is over... But has it left you wanting to know more about how Christmas tunes are made - and how they get big?

Today's episode of The Global Story podcast delves deep into the multi-million dollar scramble for a top spot on the festive music charts. How can new artists take on the likes of Mariah Carey and Slade?

Katya Adler gets answers and music – lots of it – from the BBC’s music correspondent Mark Savage, and writer and musician Chris Lochery.

Listen to the episode here.

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Last Christmas was written by George Michael in his childhood bedroom in February 1984, "and as far as I was concerned it was a number one," he told Smash Hits in 1986.

Inspiration struck out of the blue, while the singer was watching a football match at his parents' house in Hertfordshire.

"We'd had a bite to eat and were sitting together relaxing with the television on in the background when, almost unnoticed, George disappeared upstairs for an hour or so," recalled Ridgeley in his 2017 memoir. "When he came back down, such was his excitement, it was as if he had discovered gold which, in a sense, he had.

"We went to his old room, the room in which we had spent hours as kids recording pastiches of radio shows and jingles... and he played me the introduction and the beguiling, wistful chorus melody to Last Christmas. It was a moment of wonder."

The song was subsequently recorded in the middle of August at London's Advision Studios, which Michael plastered in Christmas decorations to set the mood.

When the duo played it to their families, "it claimed its first victim", Ridgeley told RTÉ in 1984.

"One of my mother's friends had a romance at Christmas, which is what the song is about. She got jilted and when she heard it, she burst into tears."

Andrew Ridgeley reacts to Last Christmas topping the charts and reflects on what his bandmate George Michael would have said.

Take a look:

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

So, Wham! have done it at last. After 39 years, Last Christmas has completed its journey from George Michael’s bedroom in Hertfordshire to Christmas Number One.

“He’d have been over the moon,” Andrew Ridgeley told me – adding that Michael believed “any great songwriter should be able to write a Christmas hit to order.”

Sam Ryder put up a good fight, working his little reindeer socks off to defeat Mariah Carey. And we haven’t seen the last of him – it feels like You’re Christmas To Me will crop up on festive playlists for years to come.

So what have we learned? I think it’s this: The Scrooges of the world may complain about Christmas songs polluting the airwaves; but 13 million people happily streamed Last Christmas over the past week.

And I know who I’d rather pull a cracker with.

"It's a big moment," says Wham! member Andrew Ridgeley in reaction to the news.

He goes on to call it an "extraordinary achievement".

When asked if there is anything special which goes into writing a Christmas song, Ridgeley says: "That's the magic. It's very difficult to identify quite what it is."

He goes on to say that Last Christmas managed to "distil the essence of Christmas" in an audio sense.

Ian Youngs
Entertainment and arts reporter

Image source, Getty Images

So that means Wham!’s Last Christmas is UK Christmas number one for the first time!

George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley’s 1984 pop classic was originally denied the top spot by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?

It eventually reached number one thanks to the combined powers of streaming and nostalgia in 2020 and 2022 – but neither time was in Christmas week itself.

This year, to save them from tears (and without LadBaby dominating the Christmas charts again), pop fans have indeed given it to someone special.

Ian Youngs
Entertainment and Arts Reporter, BBC News

He put all his trademark joy and energy into coming up with a great new Christmas song that could rival the classics, but it wasn’t quite enough for Sam Ryder to claim the number one spot.

The star promoted You’re Christmas To Me with 26 live performances in six days this week, and said he was hoping for a “Christmas miracle”.

Reaching number two is a huge achievement, but even the might of Amazon – it was an exclusive for them and they plugged it heavily – wasn’t enough to push it to the pinnacle.

Ryder is making a habit of being the runner-up. He finished second at the Eurovision Song Contest last year with Space Man, which also peaked at number two in the charts.

Sam Ryder is on the phone to Chart Show host Jack Saunders to find out if he's number one or not.

He says he had no idea when he wrote the song that he would end up in this position.

He's told he's number two, thanks Jack, and says: "That's amazing!"

Who will it be?

Press Play at the top of this page to listen.

Ian Youngs
Entertainment and arts reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Mariah Carey is the Queen of Christmas (even if the US trademark office disagrees) and All I Want For Christmas Is You has been in the festive top five every year since the advent of streaming.

It finally reached the top spot in 2020, but couldn’t quite match that this year, reaching number three.

The singer fully embraces her iconic place in modern Christmas culture, having finished her Merry Christmas One and All! Tour on Sunday, before popping in to help with the decorations on the White House tree, where President Joe Biden declared himself “a fan”.

Ian Youngs
Entertainment and arts reporter

Image source, Getty Images

US singer-songwriter Noah Kahan is at number four in the Christmas chart with his hit Stick Season. However, it’s actually more of a pre-Christmas song.

The reflective tune has spent nine weeks in the top 10, and the “season of the sticks” refers to the time around Thanksgiving, “between fall and the snow”, the Grammy-nominated singer told NME, external.

“I thought I was going to go to college but instead I got a record deal. I was just at home in Vermont making music and my friends would come home for Thanksgiving, when stick season was in full swing. They would leave, and that loneliness would come back.”

Mark Savage
BBC Music correspondent

Sam Ryder clearly knows his way around a Christmas song.

His single, You’re Christmas To Me, pulls all the right levers – a big, buoyant melody, glam rock guitars and a parping saxophone solo – to make it an instant classic.

It’s quickly become one of the front-runners for Christmas number one. And, on the face of it, that seems almost impossible.

Sam’s track is an exclusive - only available for purchase or streaming on Amazon. If you use another streaming service then, sorry, Sam’s not decorating your door with tinsel.

A CD single is also available.

The only other place to hear it online is YouTube, where it’s getting fewer views than a Christmas reworking of I’m Just Ken from the Barbie soundtrack.

So how did he end up as a real contender? Well, Amazon made You’re Christmas To Me a prominent part of their Christmas playlists – which play by default when anyone says, "Alexa, play some Christmas music".

And, hey presto, each of those streams counted towards the chart.

“I think it's a double edged sword,” says Martin Talbot, head of the Official Charts Company.

“There are other Amazon exclusives that are in the market as well, including by Jorja Smith, and Anne-Marie and they haven't done anywhere near as well as Sam has done.

"The reason why Sam is doing so well this week is because there's a song that's really engaged with people and he’s putting in a huge amount of hard work.”

Ian Youngs
Entertainment and arts reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Ed Sheeran and Sir Elton John teamed up two years ago to score a hit with Merry Christmas, and it’s back this year at number five.

The single reached number one just before and after Christmas 2021. But for the Christmas number one itself that year, Ed and Sir Elton teamed up with fundraising YouTubers LadBaby for a comedy remix of the same song.

Sir Elton is also on this week’s chart at 19 with Step Into Christmas, exactly 50 years after it was first released.

With streaming, it’s more complicated than the days when the charts were a tally of how many singles had been sold.

Now, the Official Charts Company uses a formula to combine CD and vinyl sales, downloads, streams and YouTube views, and come up with a final “sales” figure for each song.

Actual sales (either physical or download) carry much more weight than streams. That’s partly why Wham!, Sam Ryder and The Pogues have all issued physical singles this year.

With streaming, you need to listen to a song 100 times on a paid-for subscription service to be worth the same as one download sale. On a free service with adverts, that rises to 600 streams. And if the song is older than three years, those numbers double.

So someone would need to listen to Wham! 12 times on a free service to be worth one stream of Sam Ryder’s new song on a paid service – or 1,200 times to be worth one download sale.

Ian Youngs
Entertainment and arts reporter

Image source, Getty Images

One of the all-time great Christmas songs finishes the chart race in sixth place.

The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl track was hastily re-released on vinyl this week to raise money for the Dublin Simon Community, a homeless charity.

That wasn’t quite enough to push it to the top of the chart as a tribute to Shane MacGowan, less than a month after the Pogues frontman’s death.

It’s still never reached number one, having been denied the festive top spot by the Pet Shop Boys’ distinctly unfestive Always On My Mind in 1987.

Ian Youngs
Entertainment and arts reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree is still a firm festive favourite, reaching seventh place, 65 years after she recorded it as a 13-year-old.

The song is even more popular in the US, where it went to number one for the first time earlier this month, breaking records including the longest time to reach the top spot, and the oldest artist to top the Hot 100 chart.

At the age of 78, she also filmed the song’s first ever official video.