Since I started my completely fictional Holiday Music Hall of Fame, it seems that every year, someone will nominate “All I Want for Christmas is You,” the Mariah Carey track that helped launch her reign as the self-proclaimed “Queen of Christmas.”

Now, a confession: It’s not even my favorite Carey holiday song. If I want to listen to a Carey Christmas track, I’m cuing up “Oh Santa!,” and playing it loud; if I’m playing the version with Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson, the high notes near the end often attract curious canines from throughout the neighborhood to happily join in the final choruses. Now THAT’S a merry Christmas.

But enough confession.

You remember the basic rules of the Holiday Music Hall of Fame: We’re looking for those performances of holiday songs that are so good they become definitive — in other words, no other artist ever can top it. That’s a high bar, but I think most of the inductees in the hall probably clear it.

I think it’s possible that someone in the future will cut a version of “All I Want for Christmas is You” that will top the original. (Here’s a clue: Slow it down, the way that Ingrid Michaelson and Leslie Odom Jr. do in this cover version.)

But there’s something else going on here: The song has become inescapable every holiday season. It paved the way for Carey’s trademark tussle over “Queen of Christmas.” And if you’re in New York City, you can visit a Mariah Carey pop-up bar that used to play the song every 30 minutes, until patrons complained. Now, the song is played there every 15 minutes.

The song has even been enshrined in the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that “are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and inform or reflect life in the United States.” The recordings are preserved in the Library of Congress. (It’s actually fun to take a look at the recordings that have been preserved thus far — and to learn that “All I Want for Christmas is You” is preserved right alongside Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. America! What a country!

Who am I to argue with the Library of Congress? And so I’m bowing to the inevitable (and to many of your wishes) and adding Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” to my Holiday Music Hall of Fame. Chances seem pretty good you might have heard of the song already.

And you’ve probably also heard this year’s other inductee into the Main Hall, but maybe it’s been a few years since you’ve heard this particular performance:

In 1960, the great jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald released the wonderfully titled “Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas.” The album, considered one of the greatest holiday albums ever, recently was re-released — and that’s where I heard this performance of “Sleigh Ride.” Like you would expect from Ella, the tune swings — and it even has a trombone solo. (Take that, “All I Want for Christmas is You!”)

Ella’s version is my second inductee into the Holiday Music Hall of Fame this year. But I must give honorable mention to Debbie Gibson’s girl group-powered version of the same song. It even has a baritone sax part! (Take that — oh, never mind.)

It has been a couple of years since I toured the Hall of Fame structure itself, which still is being constructed in a cave on Mount Crumpit, despite insistent cease-and-desist orders from Whoville building inspectors (and a dog that barks every time I play “Oh Santa!”) So I had forgotten that the hall already has broken ground on a special wing devoted to holiday songs written in the 21st century, and a couple of tunes already had won coveted placement there. This year, the modern wing honors American treasure Kelly Clarkson’s 2013 “Underneath the Tree,” which successfully echoes Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound approach and swipes a riff, right at the start, from “All I Want for Christmas is You.” A saxophone solo is a bonus — not as good as the rarely performed extended sax solo in Part II of Handel’s “Messiah,” but still pretty good.

The 21st century wing also includes JD McPherson’s “Hey Skinny Santa!,” a track from “Socks,” his 2018 album of all-original roots-rockin’ Christmas songs; I love this song not just because it’s really fun but also because of the way McPherson pronounces “Chicago” in the first verse as “SHE-ka-go,” so it rhymes better with “pizza dough.” That, my friends, is the songwriter’s craft.

Also, two Sia songs, from her album “Everyday is Christmas,” have made the cut in the modern hall: “Snowman,” which many of you already love, and also “Santa’s Coming for Us,” seen here in a clever video that doesn’t quite answer the question of whether “Santa’s Coming for Us” is a promise … or a threat. Nevertheless, the song perfectly captures the blend of giddy anticipation and sheer horror that the season triggers in many of us. When Pentatonix finally runs out of material, the group can just cover “Everyday is Christmas” — and the cover album would probably sell just fine.

This year, as usual, readers nominated a handful of songs that deserve your attention.

I hadn’t thought about Dan Fogelberg for years until a reader nominated his 1980 song “Same Old Lang Syne,” an appropriately downbeat song about could-have-been love. I wonder why this track hasn’t been covered more often. It turns out, by the way, that Fogelberg recorded a Christmas album of his own, “The First Christmas Morning.” Pentatonix, take note.

Another reader recommended “We Three Kings,” the title track from American folk trio The Roches’ 1990 Christmas album. It’s a good track, but this album is among the most divisive holiday albums in our household — and we own “The Chipmunks’ Christmas Album.”

Another reader recommended anything by the youthful British singers Lucy and Martha Thomas. A quick search shows that the two are, in fact, remarkably talented. Here’s a video of Lucy Thomas singing a song that has earned Hall of Fame honorary honors, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” It’s very nicely done. But am I alone in thinking that the song was delivered best by Cohen himself — an old man dressed in a snazzy suit and tie and a sharp fedora who could presumably pull out any of the song’s 150 reported verses as he saw fit — or maybe just make up one or two new ones on the spot?

Wait — if Pentatonix uncovers all 150 verses of “Hallelujah,” that could take care of the group’s next album all by itself.

Finally this year: It’s possible that Hozier’s recent cover of The Pogues-Kirsty MacColl “Fairytale of New York” was the best musical performance of the season so far on “Saturday Night Live.” Hozier’s good, but the original 1987 track is better — and rest in peace, Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl.

I’ve added all these songs to the Spotify playlist, which you can access below. May the remainder of your holiday season be merry and bright.

For those of you keeping score, here’s a list of the tracks that have been enshrined in the Holiday Music Hall of Fame, including honorable mentions, the tunes enshrined in the modern wing, and other songs of note.

Holiday Music Hall of Fame

• Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
• Elvis Presley, “Blue Christmas”
• Nat King Cole, “The Christmas Song”
• Bing Crosby, “White Christmas” (with honorable mentions going to the covers by Otis Redding and The Platters)
• Eartha Kitt, “Santa Baby”
• The Beach Boys, “Little Saint Nick”
• Judy Garland, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
• Brenda Lee, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”
• Charles Brown, “Merry Christmas Baby”
• Tyler Ravenscroft, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”
• Vince Guaraldi Trio, “Christmas Time is Here”
• Joni Mitchell, “River”
• Billie Holiday, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”
• Diana Krall, “Jingle Bells”
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”
• Ukrainian Chorus Dumka NY and others, “Shchedryk (Carol of the Bells”)
• John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono, “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”
• Mariah Carey, “All I Want for Christmas is You”
• Ella Fitzgerald, “Sleigh Ride”

Honorary mentions

• The Platters, “White Christmas”
• Otis Redding, “White Christmas”
• Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”
• Bing Crosby and David Bowie, “The Little Drummer Boy”
• Debbie Gibson, “Sleigh Ride”

The Modern Wing

• Sia, “Snowman”
• Sia, “Santa’s Coming for Us”
• JD McPherson, “Hey Skinny Santa!”
• Kelly Clarkson, “Underneath the Tree”

Songs of Note

• The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl, “Fairytale of New York”
• Dan Fogelberg, “Same Auld Lang Syne”
• Lucy Thomas, “Hallelujah”
• The Roches, “We Three Kings”
• Gordon Lightfoot, “Song for a Winter’s Night”
• Stevie Wonder, “Someday at Christmas”
• Andrew Bird, “Skating”
• Willie Nelson, “Please Come Home for Christmas”
• The Linda Lindas, “Groovy Xmas”
• Sam Smith, “Night Before Christmas”