Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé have a bit of Christmas competition.

’Tis the season to deck the halls with boughs of holly, enjoy some hot cocoa and break out the classic Christmas songs. And while there are plenty of Christmas songs to get you in the holiday spirit, mostly thanks to Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey, it turns out there’s one seasonal song in particular that is happier than all the others. At least, according to science. Musicologist Professor Joe Bennett studied looked at the top 200 Spotify song streams from around Christmastime last year, including 78 Christmas or holiday-related ones. And, in the spirit of the holidays, Michael Bublé was behind 10 of the songs. The research found that songs about things that reminded people of Christmas, like Santa, snow and coming home, brought people the most joy. A major key, like C major or A major, also factored in to the most enjoyed holiday songs, while (as expected) Michael Bublé was particularly popular. Songwriters Harriet Green and Steve Anderson channelled the results of the study to try and create the happiest Christmas song ever, Love’s Not Just For Christmas. They followed a number of Bennet’s recommendations for the happy holiday tune, like mentioning Christmas a whopping 21 times. The song will be sung at intu shopping centres in the UK to make holiday shoppers happy. Mr Anderson said:

“Over the years I have been lucky to enough to have written and produced Christmas tracks and albums for a number of artists including Kylie, Susan Boyle and Harriet, who co wrote this song with me. “Hopefully we’ve risen to the challenge and provided a song people will love not only this Christmas, but for every Christmas to come.”