two eps, ten songs, and one standalone single that is bigger than both of them put together.
the short answer
two eps. christmas kisses, from december 2013, has four tracks including a cover of last christmas and santa baby. christmas & chill, from december 2015, has six original r&b tracks and no covers at all. santa tell me, a standalone 2014 single, is larger than both eps combined.
christmas kisses, 2013
released 13 december 2013, three months after yours truly. four tracks: last christmas, love is everything, snow in california and santa baby. two covers and two originals, which is the conventional shape for a young artist's first holiday release.
the japanese edition later added santa tell me, which is a footnote that turned out to matter — the biggest holiday record of her career technically belongs to this ep's extended tracklist rather than to anything else.
christmas & chill, 2015
released 18 december 2015, and a completely different proposition. six tracks, all original, no covers, and produced by tommy brown with victoria monét among the writers. it is slow, r&b-inflected, and adult in a way holiday records almost never are.
how they compare
| christmas kisses | christmas & chill | |
|---|---|---|
| released | 13 december 2013 | 18 december 2015 |
| tracks | 4 | 6 |
| covers | last christmas, santa baby | none |
| sound | bright, traditional, doo-wop-adjacent | slow r&b, minimal, adult |
| reception | modest | cult |
why santa tell me beat both
because it is a song about not wanting to be hurt again that happens to be set at christmas, rather than a song about christmas. that gives it somewhere to go emotionally, which is what every durable holiday standard has and what almost nothing on either ep does.
it is now her twelfth most streamed song, reached number five on the hot 100 in december 2024, and earns nearly all of it in six weeks a year. the full piece on it explains why that is a genuinely unusual asset to own.
will there be more
nothing has been announced, and there has been nothing new for eleven years. a third holiday release is one of the very few obvious commercial moves left untaken in her catalogue, and the 2026 step back makes it less likely rather than more.
why the christmas material stopped
the last new holiday recording was in 2015, which is eleven years. the plausible reason is that santa tell me solved the problem: an artist who owns a standard does not need to keep releasing seasonal material, because the standard earns every december without any.
the two eps are also from a specific commercial era. holiday releases in 2013 and 2015 were sold as downloads into a december window; the modern equivalent is a playlist placement, and a new ep would compete with her own back catalogue for it.
questions people ask
does ariana grande have a christmas album?
two eps rather than an album — christmas kisses in 2013 and christmas & chill in 2015.
what is on christmas kisses?
four tracks: last christmas, love is everything, snow in california and santa baby. the japanese edition later added santa tell me.
what is christmas & chill?
a six-track ep from december 2015, entirely original, slow and r&b-inflected, with no covers at all.
which is her biggest christmas song?
santa tell me, by a wide margin. it is a standalone single rather than an ep track and reached number five on the hot 100 in 2024.
will there be another christmas release?
nothing has been announced, and there has been nothing new for eleven years.