Billboard’s Top Holiday Albums chart returns for the 2021 holiday season, with Carrie Underwood’s 2020 release My Gift leading the list (dated Oct. 9).
The Top Holiday Albums tally will continue to be published on a weekly basis through early January of 2022, when it will jingle away until the next holiday season. (The chart generally returns every October.)
My Gift spends a seventh nonconsecutive week atop the tally, after six weeks at No. 1 last season following its release on Sept. 25, 2020. The album was reissued on Sept. 24, 2021 with three bonus tracks.
The Top Holiday Albums chart ranks the 50 most popular seasonal albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
The Oct. 9-dated Top Holiday Albums chart is filled with familiar favorites in the world of seasonal albums, including Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, Michael Bublé’s Christmas, Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas and Nat “King” Cole’s The Christmas Song. The chart’s highest debut is Chris Tomlin’s Emmanuel: Christmas Songs of Worship, which starts at No. 8 following its release on Sept. 24.
Upcoming holiday album releases that will likely impact the Top Holiday Albums chart include: Darren Criss’ A Very Darren Christmas (due out Oct. 8), Josh Turner’s King Size Manger (Oct. 8), Kelly Clarkson’s When Christmas Comes Around (Oct. 15), Norah Jones’ I Dream of Christmas (Oct. 15), Jim Brickman’s A Christmas Symphony (Oct. 22), Kristin Chenoweth’s Happiness Is… Christmas! (Oct. 22), Brett Eldredge’s Mr. Christmas (Oct. 22), Zach Williams’ I Don’t Want Christmas To End (Oct. 22), Brett Young & Friends’ Sing the Christmas Classics (Oct. 22), Pistol Annies’ Hell of a Holiday (Oct. 22), Rob Thomas’ Something About Christmas Time (Oct. 22), Nat “King” Cole’s A Sentimental Christmas With Nat “King” Cole and Friends: Cole Classics Reimagined (Oct. 29), Pentatonix’s Evergreen (Oct. 29), Matthew West’s We Need Christmas (Oct. 29) and Steve Perry’s The Season (Nov. 5).
