BBC Radio 1 announces official Christmas number 1 song for 2024

This year's highly-anticipated Christmas number one has finally been announced - and it won't be good news for many who try to avoid the song each year. It was a nail-biting race with Wham!, pop queen Gracie Abrams and Mariah Carey all dominating the charts and vying for the all-important top spot.

Last year, Wham! finally secured the UK’s Official Christmas Number One with Last Christmas, a record-breaking 39 years after first being denied it.

And for a second year in a row, the Official Charts Company has named the song Christmas number one again.

Last Christmas had 12.6 million weekly streams and was also the best seller of the week physically too, thanks to a suite of limited edition 40^th anniversary collectibles, including zoetrope vinyl, picture disc and CD.

Behind Wham was Gracie Abrams with That's So True and Mariah Carey's Christmas classic All I Want for Christmas Is You number three.

Written and produced by George Michael with the aim of landing the Christmas Number one in 1984, festive classic Last Christmas was famously kept off the top spot upon release thanks to Band-Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? which is the second best-selling single of all time.

Speaking of being named Christmas number one, Wham! star Andrew Ridgeley said: "37 years to get to Number 1, 39 years to Christmas Number 1, and then like London buses they all come along at once.

"I’m especially pleased for George, he would have been utterly delighted, his fabulous Christmas composition has become such a classic, almost as much a part of Christmas as mince pies, turkey and pigs in blankets.”

“It’s testament to a really wonderful Christmas song that in a lot of people’s minds evokes and represents Christmas as we would all wish it to be.