Not everybody has the luxury of belting out Christmas songs to the accompaniment of a full orchestra. And the good news is, you don't need it. With just a guitar, you can transform yourself into a one-person Christmas band, and you don't need to have years of guitar training under your belt either.
Easiest Christmas guitar songs
Here is our list of the ten easiest Christmas songs to play on the guitar.
1. Jingle Bells
Nobody is quite sure when or where Jingle Bells originated, or even what its purpose was: some say it was to written to commemorate the annual sleigh races that took place around Thanksgiving in Medford, Massachusetts. Others say it was intended as a drinking song.
What we do know is that this jaunty tune (also one of our 10 best Christmas songs of all time) was published in 1857, by the American songwriter James Lord Pierpont, under the name 'One Horse Open Sleigh,' and soon became one of the most performed and most recognisable secular holiday songs ever written, not only in the United States, but around the world. It was even broadcast from space in a Christmas-themed prank by astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra in 1965, with the help of a smuggled harmonica and sleigh bells.
God news, guitarists: 'Jingle Bells' is one of the easiest carols to play on the guitar. Though it does have D7 and A7 chords, which beginners might find tricky, all you need to do is substitute regular D and A chords and you’re laughing.
2. We Three Kings
John Henry Hopkins Jr, who wrote this hymn, was a man of many talents. After a stint working as a journalist for a New York City newspaper, he graduated from the General Theological Seminary in 1850, and became a deacon, author, illustrator, designer as well as a hymn writer.
Yet it is 'We Three Kings of Orient Are' - written in 1857, when Hopkins was serving as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania - for which he is best known. With its simple melody and evocative lyrics, that tell the story of the three wise men announcing their gifts to the baby Jesus, it's a firm favourite among children and a go-to for nativity plays.
It’s also a great carol for beginner guitarists, thanks to its sedate tempo, which gives hands enough time to get round the chords - of which there are mercifully few. Which makes it one of the easiest Christmas guitar songs...
3. Joy to the World
Written in 1719 by the English minister and hymns Isaac Watts, 'Joy to the World' ranks amongst the most upbeat of Christmas carols, celebrating Christ’s triumphant return to the world. Watts believed that everyone - not just professional singers - should be able to celebrate Christ’s return. And that, naturally, includes guitarists.
Luckily, as Christmas guitar songs go, this one is probably the easiest, given that it consists of just three very simple chords: G, D and C.
4. Blue Christmas
Telling the story of unrequited love during the holiday, this Christmas song has long been a classic, particularly since Elvis Presley sang it on his 1957 LP Elvis’ Christmas Album. Among those who have covered it are Ringo Starr, Celine Dion, The Beach Boys and Sheryl Crow.
But you don’t need to be a pop star to perform it; you don’t even need a full band, because this melancholy little tune is perfectly playable with a single guitar, especially if you use one of the easier versions, such as the one below. Hey presto: another of those nice, easy, ready-to-perform Christmas guitar songs.
5. Frosty the Snowman
The loveable snowman, with 'a button nose and two eyes made out of coal' first came to life during the Christmas season of 1950, when the American songwriters Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins wrote this charming song. Following the success of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', which had been recorded by the singer Gene Autry the previous year, Rollins and Nelson proposed the song to Autry, who recorded it - and landed another hit.
Frosty went on to appear in a children's book, and on television, while the song became a seasonal fixture - covered, over the years, by artists including Jimmy Durante, Nat King Cole and Guy Lombard.
As guitar songs go, it’s not the absolute easiest, but is still perfectly suitable for beginners, consisting of five basic chord shapes and one of the most common strumming patterns.
More easy Christmas guitar songs
6. It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas
This Christmas classic dates back to 1951, when it was written by Meredith Wilson, a professional songwriter and former flautist in the New York Philharmonic, who also wrote the Oscar-nominated score for Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.
Over the years it has been covered over 200 times, most famously by the Canadian singer Michael Bublé, whose velvety voice evokes the golden age of jazz. His version, of course, has the benefit of sumptuous orchestration, but you can do perfectly well with just a guitar, because this song is pretty easy to pick up and play, particularly given its leisurely tempo. Yes, it's another surefire entry in our list of easiest Christmas guitar songs.
7. White Christmas
For all that Irving Berlin - a Russian-born Jewish immigrant in the US - did not really celebrate Christmas, he clearly knew what he was doing when he wrote 'White Christmas' for the 1942 film Holiday Inn.
One day Berlin, allegedly, told his secretary: 'I want you to take down a song I wrote over the weekend. Not only is it the best song I ever wrote, it's the best song anybody ever wrote.' Modest? Maybe not, but he had some justification, given that ‘White Christmas’ remains the most popular Christmas song of all time.
And, hurray! It’s also very guitar-friendly, as you’ll see from the tutorial below.
8. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Although the greeting ‘a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’ is recorded from the early 18th century, the origin of this carol is unclear. It probably lies in the English tradition of giving Christmas treats such as ‘figgy pudding’ to carol-singers on Christmas Eve.Its current popularity, however, is the doing of composer Arthur Warrell, who published a carol in 1939 called ‘A Merry Christmas’, which is heard just about everywhere throughout December.
With its stepwise, repetitive melody, 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' is one of the simplest tunes to play on the guitar - just watch out for the rapid chord transition from G to C on ‘New Year’.
9. Silent Night
First performed on Christmas Eve 1818, in a village parish church in present-day Austria, this melody has been variously attributed to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert - probably because it’s so darned good. In fact it was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, a schoolmaster and organist in the Austrian village of Arnsdorf.
It went on to be taken up by two famous Austrian singing families, the Rainers and the Strassers, who performed it on tour. By 1914, 'Silent Night' was so well-known across the globe that, when German soldiers sang it in the World War I trenches, British soldiers were able to join in. Since it has been covered by many, many singers Bing Crosby to Mariah Carey.
Requiring only three chords, it’s a great song for beginner guitarists. It does contain an F-chord, which can bring guitarists out in a cold sweat. But think of it as a chance to get practising!
10. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
It all started in 1939, when Robert L. May, an in-house advertising copywriter for the US retail corporation Montgomery Ward, was asked to write a cheery children's book for Christmas shoppers, with an animal as its central character. He decided to write one about a big-hearted reindeer, testing it out on his four-year-old daughter Barbara as he completed each draft.
Nine years later, May persuaded his brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, to turn the book into music. The result was 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', which went to become the most famous Christmas children’s song of all time.
And I can hear the squeals of delight from all you guitar-players: yes, 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' is perfectly playable on the guitar, alternating, for the most part, between the chords of C and G, with just the odd tricksy appearance of the dreaded F major.
