Twelve songs, seventy-five years and a nation's chart obsession. Every December, Britain waits for the one chart result that still matters: the Christmas number one. In an age when the singles chart has lost much of its cultural power, the festive top spot remains fiercely contested by pop stars, novelty acts, charity campaigns and the occasional underdog. The Twelve Songs of Christmas tells the story of this uniquely British obsession through a dozen chart-toppers, beginning in 1950 with Gene Autry's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and leading up to Wham! with "Last Christmas", which - thirty-nine years after its release - finally claimed the crown in 2023.