As an artificial construct, the Christmas number one might be a perfectly innocuous and even charming tradition if it weren't for the sheer volume of musical abominations it's inflicted upon the nation for the past five decades. Popular music charts have been around since the '50s, but in 1969 the BBC started conducting a larger analysis of record sales in which the results were read out weekly on Johnnie Walker's radio show. Four years later, the glam-rock band Slade birthed the concept of the Christmas number one when they wrote and released the single "Merry Xmas Everybody," a ghastly anthem of enforced jollity that has nevertheless become as ubiquitous at British Christmases as paper hats and mince pies. "Here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun," Noddy Holder screeches, possibly simultaneously birthing the concept of FOMO. "Look to the future now, it's only just begun." He wasn't wrong. Millennia ago, according to legend, a child had been born, but now, thanks to Slade, the people of Britain would mark Jesus's birth each year by watching Top of the Pops reruns of the inexplicably hirsute Holder grinning into a microphone while pretending to do the Twist. Just like that, Christmas and terrible music had become inextricably linked.

There’s no one quality or characteristic shared by Christmas number ones beyond the obvious fact that all have sold more records than any other single over the week leading up to Christmas. The songs range from the sublime (the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” in 1981) to the ridiculous (Bob the Builder’s “Can We Fix It” in 2000). Some, like Cliff Richard’s gut-twistingly schmaltzy 1988 “Mistletoe and Wine,” mention Christmas at great length; others neglect to even acknowledge it (see Bob the Builder, above). A handful, like Band Aid’s 1984 “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” have a larger charitable purpose, but most, like “Merry Xmas Everybody,” exist only to annually replenish the coffers of the ones who created them. More recently, the trend has been hijacked by reality television shows, with stars from The X Factor and Popstars: The Rivals taking the top spot in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2013.

Almost as fascinating as the list of Christmas number ones is the collection of songs that came in second. In 1987, the Pogues’ “Fairytale in New York” submitted to the might of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Always on My Mind,” and in 1994, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” couldn’t quite beat “Stay Another Day” by East 17, a band named after an East London postcode who not even their mother’s heard from since. (It’s hard not to imagine Mariah possibly being saddened by this defeat at the time, unaware that the royalties she’d soon reap from the catchiest Christmas song in history could clothe the world’s entire population in latex Santa suits.) In 1997, the Teletubbies peaked at #2 with “Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!,” a song even babies couldn’t appreciate, and in 2005, Nizlopi had the one-hit-wonder “JCB Song,” a poignant ballad about a child whose father let him ride to work with him on a JCB digger.