Kerstliedjes

Play along during the dark, cosy festive season in December with the most fun Christmas songs on your guitar. We have a huge selection of songs for young and old, mum and dad, grandpa and grandma.

The best Dutch-language Christmas songs for guitar are from artists including Guus Meeuwis, Jan Smit and Nick & Simon, as well as Kinderen voor Kinderen. Alongside these festive songs, we also have the classic old songs such as O Denneboom, Stille Nacht, Nu Zijt Wellekome written out in full. You can play along with Christmas guitar songs using chords, guitar tabs and ProTabs.

Discover the songs on Gitaartabs.

Many Christmas songs have chords that you can learn with guitar lessons, and you can also learn to play Christmas songs with guitar tutorials.

A distinction can be made between religious Christmas hymns, which are about the birth of Jesus Christ, and secular songs that describe the festive atmosphere around Christmas (Santa Claus, snow or cosiness). The secular songs are largely of American origin. The Santa songs correspond to our Sinterklaas songs. There is also classical music that has been specially composed for Christmas, such as the Weihnachtsoratorium by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Certain ideologies such as communism, liberalism, secularism and National Socialism opposed (or have opposed) the Christian celebration of Christmas; for example, O Tannenbaum (O Denneboom) was used in the Third Reich to displace other Christmas songs.

Religious Christmas hymns also include a number of canonical songs that have different origins and ages. For the Netherlands, a number of Christmas songs are known from the 15th and 16th centuries, found in manuscripts that probably originated in circles around the Modern Devotion, while the genre for the Spanish Netherlands mutated in the seventeenth century into the Cantiones natalitiae. A song such as Hoe leyt dit kindeke or Nu zijt wellekome dates from the beginning of the modern period; Stille Nacht was written at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In the twentieth century, the songs Jingle Bells and (I'm dreaming of a) White Christmas, both products of the American music industry, became the most famous representatives of the second type of Christmas songs. Many pop artists have since created a Christmas song. A peculiarity is that these songs rarely gain popularity in the Netherlands, because there is a taboo on Christmas songs before 6 December (people want to protect the Sinterklaas celebration), and so such a song has little time to become popular.

Whether you are a beginner or an experienced guitarist, "Kerstliedjes met swing" is the perfect book for you. This book offers simple chords for newcomers and challenging arrangements for advanced players. With the 20 most popular Christmas songs, you bring the magic of Christmas to the sound of your strings. Learn how to play the melody and chords using easy keys with few or no sharps and flats. Enjoy the pleasure and play together with your family and friends during the festive season. Order your copy of "Kerstliedjes met swing" now in our webshop and make this Christmas season a musical celebration.