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\n\tPeople sang around Christmastime as early as the year 129 A.D.<\/a> and created Latin hymns for the season by the 4th century, but it wasn\u2019t until the 12th century that folks started singing what we would consider to be Christmas carols. There was an explosion of new Christmas songs in the 19th century, and by the 20th century, more secular holiday tunes had become an essential part of the season, from Irving Berlin\u2019s smash hit \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d (immortalized by Bing Crosby) to \u201cSilver Bells\u201d to \u201cRudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe bar has been set high in the last 70 years, from Brenda Lee\u2019s \u201cRockin\u2019 Around the Christmas Tree\u201d to Mariah Carey\u2019s \u201cAll I Want for Christmas Is You,\u201d both of which topped the Billboard Hot 100 decades after their initial release and continue to compete for the upper echelon of the Hot 100 each December.<\/p>\n \n\tOf course, artists are still making new Christmas music, but a lot of the songs they record in the 21st century go way back \u2013 \u201cSilent Night\u201d was written in 1818, for example. Still, more than 200 years later, songwriters are penning new Christmas songs. Where will the next future classics come from? Here\u2019s one place to look, as our Billboard<\/em> critic ranks the 30 best original Christmas songs by American Idol <\/em>finalists from the series\u2019 multiple seasons on Fox and ABC-TV.<\/p>\n \n\tTo see what\u2019s hot during the cold season, take a look the No. 1 song on our annual Holiday 100 chart<\/a>. For a list of our staff picks of the 100 best Christmas songs of all time, grab a cup of eggnog and peruse this one<\/a>. And to see our Billboard<\/em> chart-based list of the greatest holiday hits of all time, jingle your way right over here.<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tFred Bronson has been covering <\/em>American Idol for <\/em>Billboard since 2003. He has curated a Spotify playlist<\/a> of Idols singing Christmas songs, both originals and covers.<\/em><\/p>\n