ROCKING YOUR STOCKING: THE XMAS TOP 10

Holiday music is enjoying an explosive season, having overtaken the DSPs before the first sandwich was made from leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

As you'll note in the Top 10 below, Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas (Columbia) leads the pack with nearly 8.5m in activity, followed by Michael Bublé’s 2011 set, Christmas (Reprise), which has emerged as a new-school standard in recent years. The list also includes such familiar seasonal favorites as Nat King Cole (Capitol), the Vince Guaraldi Trio (Concord), Pentatonix (RCA), Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby (Capitol) and Brenda Lee (MCA Nashville), who recently nabbed her first #1 single with “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” She is, to cite a heartwarming old lyric, coming on strong.

Look for streams to go into overdrive—and vinyl gifts to stretch out more than a few stockings—as the weather outside becomes frightful.

Once again this year, "holiday music" pretty much exclusively means "Christmas music." We know Hanukkah tunesmiths will keep trying, though. Latke luck, y'all.