Planning on caroling or gathering around a piano this holiday season? Stock up on tunes to play with our picks for the best Christmas sheet music collections.
This relatively recently released Christmas sheet music book for piano includes 60 selections enapsulating all eras of carols and popular tunes. Evergreen classics like “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” and “Angels We Have Heard on High” sit side by side with more recent releases like “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and selections from 2004’s The Polar Express (which we also included on our best Christmas movies of all time post).
If 60 songs isn’t enough for all the holiday time gigs you have lined up, move up to this book of 100 from Hal Leonard, who published one of our favorite guitar books for beginners.
While this, too, spans both contemporary and classic carols, this book was published in 1984, so you’re definitely getting a good helping of a certain era of Christmas music. That includes things like “Wonderful Christmastime” and “A Marshmallow World”, among others.
Planning on singing with friends and family, or indeed, actually going caroling? This book of 80 songs offers up the melodies, words, and chords for the best songs for caroling. It’s a relatively slim volume, so you can use it as a handy reference or buy enough copies for your whole chorus.
What would a collection of Christmas sheet music be without a few holiday-related soundtracks? To that end, aside from “White Christmas” (there’s sheet music for that film, too), there might be few more iconic movie-related Christmas tunes than “Christmas Time Is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
This book naturally includes that tune plus nine others and some delightful Peanuts illustrations.
The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the greatest films ever made, not just one of the best Christmas movies. That’s why you’ll want to consider buying the sheet music for the film to add to your repertoire for the season.
It includes “When Love Is Gone” from the scene that was cut out of the theatrical release edit, which is a shame.
To make up for the fact that we excluded The Nightmare Before Christmas from our best Christmas movies list, we’re including this song book here. Most of these tracks are definitely better suited to Halloween, but if you like spookiness in every holiday, this Danny Elfman-penned gem doesn’t disappoint.
One of the most beautiful live shows I’ve ever seen is Ed Gerhard playing his annual Christmas gig where he performs selections from both of his holiday albums, Christmas and On a Cold Winter’s Night. If fingerstyle guitar appeals to you, Christmas songs lend themselves well to the craft and this book features 20 songs in both notation and tablature.
For those of you who prefer something a little more off-beat, this Christmas book for ukulele not only gives you both musical and tab notation, but also an in-depth guide for actually learning how to play.
This even extends to online videos that walk you through each of the 21 tunes. You could very well learn how to play ukulele by starting with this book and Christmas songs you’re famliar with.
Mandolin is one of the great unheralded instruments. It underpins a lot of different musical styles and makes a great accompaniment to many other instruments. If you’re a mandolin player, this is the book for you.
It’s a relatively small volume with only 23 classic carols, but that’s more than enough for a few sing-alongs this holiday season.
Flautists, to the front. This book outweighs virtually every other book on this list with a whopping 175 songs. If you play flute and you want to play Christmas tunes, this is more than enough to keep you occupied for several holidays.
These span generations of tunes, so you’re unlikely to get bored but very likely to find a few of your favorites within.
Violins make everything sound better. If you play, you’ll want to check out this definitive guide to Christmas songs for violin, which has a particular focus on Tudor, Georgian, and Victorian periods. It includes not only the expected notation, but also full lyrics and notes about each.
This will give you a deeper understanding of these songs, as well as introduce you to a few you might not know. If you need more tunes across the ages, consider The Big Book of Christmas Songs for Violin.
Harp is a criminally underrated instrument, although we Joanna Newsom fans know. For the harpists out there, this book offers 50 classic carols arranged in both an easy version and an advanced version.
It also includes lyrics and chord notation, which is helpful for accompaniment.
Jim Brickman’s soothing piano music is well known, and more specifically his Christmas piano arrangements. If you want to dive into them yourself, grab this definitive guide with 23 songs for piano, voice, and guitar.
Certainly one of the better known vocal groups, particularly during the holidays, Pentatonix have a number of Christmas albums including Christmas Is Here!,That’s Christmas to Me, and PTXmas. This songbook, though, focuses on A Pentatonix Christmas, offering their arrangements of 11 songs for vocals, piano, and guitar.
Would any Christmas sheet music collection be complete without Trans-Siberian Orchestra, particularly the music from The Lost Christmas Eve? Equal parts epic orchestral, Broadway and hard rock, this is a staple. Great for shredders, among others.