Prior to March 1, 1991, the only means of tracking sales figures for record albums and singles in the United States was via the certification system of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), based specifically on shipments (less potential returns) on a long-term basis.
In November 2016, Billboard has compiled a list of the top ten selling Christmas albums, using both RIAA certification information and actual point-of-sale data from Nielsen SoundScan.
For albums released before SoundScan started collecting data in 1991, Billboard used their RIAA certification to determine sales.
[2] As of December 8th, 2023, Mariah Carey's "Merry Christmas" certified 9,000,000 album sales in the United States.
This list provides a more complete representation of the best-selling Christmas albums in history, as it includes those released well before the Nielsen/SoundScan era of music sales.