Christmas Radio Stations: When They Switch to All-Christmas, and How to Listen From Anywhere
Your local station is about to go all-Christmas, or you moved away from the one you grew up with. When stations usually flip, how to find the one near you, and how to play it on your iPhone from anywhere.
The short answer
Most US stations that go all-Christmas do it between mid-November and Black Friday. In 2026, Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26 and Black Friday is November 27. A few stations flip as early as November 1, and a few wait until December. Most play Christmas music through Christmas Day, then switch back.
Stations announce the date only a few days ahead, so there is no master list to check now. To find yours:
- Check the station's own website or social accounts in mid-November. That is where the flip gets announced.
- Search "[your city] Christmas music station" once stations start switching. Local news usually covers it.
- To hear it from anywhere, almost every AM and FM station also streams online. Any app with a big station directory can play it on your iPhone, including ours (more on that below).
One thing trips people up: a station that flips keeps its name. New York's 106.7 Lite FM is still called Lite FM in December. So searching a radio app for "Christmas" finds stations named Christmas, not the local station that switched. Search for your station by its name or call letters.
Who this is for
You grew up with the station that went all-Christmas every year, and now you live three states away. Or your local station has not switched yet and you want Christmas radio now. Or your town has no station that does it at all, and you want one that does.
All three come down to the same thing: find a station that is playing Christmas music right now, and play it on your phone. If you would rather pick the songs yourself, our Christmas songs playlist is the better fit. Radio is for when you want someone else to choose, with a DJ and the local station's own sound.
When stations switch to Christmas music
There is no fixed day. Each station picks its own date, and the date moves from year to year.
New York's 106.7 Lite FM (WLTW) is a good example. It switched on Friday, November 17 in 2023 (Amsterdam News), and on Friday, November 21 in 2025, playing holiday music 24 hours a day through Christmas Day (Amsterdam News).
The clearest count comes from NorthPine, which tracks every all-Christmas station in the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Michigan's Upper Peninsula and nearby Canada). In 2025 (NorthPine):
| When | Stations that switched |
|---|---|
| November 1 | 4 |
| Before Thanksgiving, all of November | 58 in total |
| Thanksgiving Day | 33 |
| Black Friday | 36, the biggest single day |
| By December 11 | 156 in total, a record |
That is one region, but the pattern is the useful part: a handful early, a steady trickle through November, and the biggest wave on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Expect 2026 to look similar, with Thanksgiving on November 26.
NorthPine also found towns with no commercial FM station doing it at all. Duluth, Green Bay and Waterloo had only non-commercial Christian stations playing all-Christmas in 2025. If that sounds like your town, the next two sections are for you.
Finding the Christmas station near you
- Start with the stations you already know. Adult contemporary stations, the soft-rock "Lite" or "Mix" kind, are the usual candidates. Check their websites and Instagram or Facebook pages from about November 10.
- Search the news. "[city] radio Christmas music" turns up the local story once a station announces it.
- Upper Midwest: NorthPine keeps a full list of all-Christmas stations each season, linked from the post above.
- Ask your car. If you are driving anyway, scan the FM dial. A station that has flipped is not hard to spot.
Once you know the station's name, you can listen to it anywhere it streams.
How to listen to your hometown station from anywhere
Trending Music is our app, so weigh this section with that in mind. The Radio tab is free with ads and plays live stations from Radio Browser, an open, community-run directory of more than 50,000 stations.
- Open Trending Music and tap the Radio tab.
- Tap the search bar at the top and type the station's name or call letters. "WLTW" and "Lite FM" both find New York's Lite FM, and "KOST" finds KOST 103.5 in Los Angeles.
- If the same station shows up more than once, that is normal. People add stations to the directory separately. Try the first one, and if it will not play, try the next.
- Tap the station to start it. It keeps playing with the phone locked.
- Tap the heart on the station to save it. Saved stations show up in a Favorites row at the top of the Radio tab, so next time it is one tap.
It works the same in the car: Trending has a Radio tab in CarPlay too, and your favorite stations are there. If you fall asleep to it, the app's sleep timer stops the station for you.
Heard a song on the station and missed the name? The clock button at the top of the Radio tab opens Heard on Radio, a running list of songs that played on the stations you listened to.
Christmas radio before your station switches
Some internet stations play Christmas music all year. Search the Radio tab for "Christmas" and you will find them. When we checked in late October, the top results included Christmas Vinyl HD, 181.FM Christmas Classics, 1.FM Always-Christmas Radio and the Dutch Sky Radio Christmas, and all of them were marked as working in the directory.
These are good for early November, when the local stations have not switched yet. They are also good for the opposite problem: if your local station's playlist feels like the same 40 songs every hour by December 15, a station like Christmas Vinyl HD, which plays older records, sounds quite different.
Where Trending can't help
- Not every station is in the directory. Radio Browser is built by its users. Most big stations are there, but one we searched for while writing this was not. Anyone can submit a missing station on the Radio Browser website, and it then shows up in apps that use the directory, including ours. We cannot add a station by hand inside the app.
- It cannot tell you which stations have switched. The app shows a station's name and genre tags, not whether it went all-Christmas this week. The station's own website is the place to check.
- Some streams will not play from outside their country. A few broadcasters only license their online stream for listeners at home. If you are abroad and a US station will not start, that is the likely reason, and the station's own app or website may be no different.
- Free means ads. Starting a station can show a Trending ad on the free version. Premium removes Trending's own ads. The ads you hear between songs are the radio station's, the same ones as on the FM dial, and no app removes those.
- The station decides when Christmas ends. Most flip back after Christmas Day. If you want Christmas music on December 27, the year-round stations above still have it.
When do radio stations start playing Christmas music in 2026?
Each station picks its own date, usually announced a few days ahead. Most switch between mid-November and Black Friday, which is November 27, 2026, and the biggest wave comes on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. A few start on November 1, and most play Christmas music through Christmas Day.
Can I listen to a Christmas radio station from another city?
Yes, as long as the station streams online, which almost every AM and FM station does. Search for it by name or call letters in a radio app with a big station directory, such as the Radio tab in Trending Music, and save it to your favorites. A few stations limit their stream to listeners in their own country.
Why can't I find my Christmas station by searching "Christmas"?
Because a local station that goes all-Christmas keeps its normal name. Lite FM is still Lite FM in December. A search for "Christmas" finds stations with Christmas in their name, most of them internet stations that play it all year. Search for your station's name or call letters instead.
Your next step
If you know the station you want, save it now, while you are thinking of it. Search for it in the Radio tab and tap the heart, and it will be waiting when it flips.
Prefer choosing your own songs? Start with our Christmas songs playlist. Want the rest of the radio features, like the station map and stations by genre? See how to listen to free live radio on iPhone. Driving home for the holidays? Here is how to play music in CarPlay without a subscription. And if you want the station to wake you up instead of a beep, see how to wake up to any song.