Round 1 is in the books, and things went pretty much as expected.  I realized that I’m gonna need to pick up the pace if I want to get this tournament down before Christmas, so I’m doubling up the divisions this round.  Today, we’ll vote on matches in both the Religious Division and the Sad division.

Of the 16 round 1 matches in the Religious division, only 4 were won by lower seeds, those winners being “Peace on Earth,” “In The Bleak Midwinter,” “Hallelujah Chorus,” and “The First Noel.” The biggest upvote earner was “O Holy Night” (#1), with 84 upvotes.  This match also yielded the biggest gap between winner and lose, with only 5 votes for “He Shall Feed His Flock” (#32).  The lowest voted was “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” (#30), which only received 4 votes.  The closest match was between “The Little Drummer Boy” (#12) and “In the Bleak Midwinter” (#21), with “Midwinter” winning out 43-38.  “Drummer Boy” was also the highest upvoted song to not move on, while “Midwinter” was the lowest upvoted to make it through to Round 2.

There were no surprises in the Sad division, with every higher seeded song winning it’s match-up.  Highest upvoted was “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (#1) with 66, handily beating “I’m Not Ready for Christmas” (#32), which only earned 2 upvotes (this was the biggest blowout).  The lowest voted was “Nothing Left to Do (Let’s Make This Christmas Blue)” (#31), which only received a single vote.  Closest contest was in the middle of the pack, with “I Wonder as I Wander” (#16) beating “Christmas in LA” (#17) with a score of 17-10.  “I Wonder as I Wander” was the least upvoted song to make it through.  Interestingly, the highest upvoted loser was “Mary Did You Know” (#28), which actually earned more than the lowest winner with 18 votes.

Voting on Round 2 for both divisions will be open as soon as the comments are populated.  I’ll continue to add YouTube links for each song (different versions where I can).