"Feliz Navidad" is a Christmas song

Christmas music

Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season, which tends to begin in the months leading up the actual holiday and end in the weeks shortly thereafter.-Early:...

 written in 1970 by the Puerto Rican

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 singer-songwriter José Feliciano

José Feliciano

José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...

. With its simple Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 chorus (the traditional Christmas/New Year greeting, "Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad" or "Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year" and equally simple English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 verse "I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart", it has become a classic Christmas pop song

Pop Song

Pop Song is the first single by the Drugs. It was released in 2000 and earned the Drugs some positive press. It has been described as "addictive". A live version was released on The Only Way Is Up...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

Feliciano's version of "Feliz Navidad" (in which he plays both an acoustic guitar and a Puerto Rican cuatro

Cuatro (instrument)

The cuatro is any of several Latin American instruments of the guitar or lute family. The cuatro is smaller than a guitar. Cuatro means four in Spanish, although current instruments may have more than four strings....

) is one of the most downloaded and aired Christmas songs in the United States and Canada. The addition of the horns as a final touch was the idea of producer Rick Jarrard

Rick Jarrard

Rick Jarrard was a staff producer for RCA Records during the 1960s. Artists he worked with included Jose Feliciano, The Family Tree, Harry Nilsson, Stone Country, The Loading Zone and Jefferson Airplane. In the earlier part of that decade, Jarrard was a member of the Greenwood County Singers, a...

. It was also recognized by ASCAP as one of the top 25 most played and recorded Christmas songs around the world.

"Feliz Navidad" has been covered by many other artists including Celine Dion

Celine Dion

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...

, David Hasselhoff

David Hasselhoff

David Michael Hasselhoff is an American actor, singer, producer and businessman. He is best known for his lead roles as Michael Knight in the popular 1980s US series Knight Rider and as L.A. County Lifeguard Mitch Buchannon in the series Baywatch...

, Moby

Moby

Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...

 (on his album Moby Presents: Alien Sex Party

Moby Presents: Alien Sex Party

Moby Presents: Alien Sex Party A.K.A. Porno is a 2002 American independent comedy musical directed by Paul Yates and executive produced by Moby about the goings-on in an adult video store on Christmas Eve...

), El Vez

El Vez

El Vez is the stage name of Robert Lopez, a Mexican-American rock and roll artist, who performs and records original material and covers classic rock songs...

, Jon Secada

Jon Secada

Jon Secada is a Cuban-American singer and songwriter. Secada was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Hialeah, Florida. He has won two Grammy Awards and sold 20 million albums since his English-language debut album in 1992. His music fuses funk, soul, pop and Latin percussion...

, Fenix TX, Home Grown

Home Grown

Home Grown was an American rock band formed in 1994 in Orange County, California. They released three full-length albums and several EPs before disbanding in 2005. Their music is often characterized as pop punk, lyrically favoring humor and silly or satirical subjects.-Formation:Home Grown was...

, the ska-punk band Voodoo Glow Skulls

Voodoo Glow Skulls

Voodoo Glow Skulls are an American ska punk band formed in 1988 in Riverside, California by brothers Frank, Eddie and Jorge Casillas and their longtime friend Jerry O'Neill...

, the Von Trapp Children

Von Trapp children

The Von Trapp Children are a musical group made up of Justin, Amanda, Melanie, and Sofia von Trapp, descendants of the Trapp Family Singers. They are the grandchildren of Werner von Trapp and great-grandchildren of Georg Ritter von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead, and the...

, Anca Parghel

Anca Parghel

Anca Parghel , Romanian jazz artist, was a singer who excelled in scat, improvisation and vocal percussion...

, The Wiggles

The Wiggles

The Wiggles are a children's group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1991. Their original members were Anthony Field, Phillip Wilcher, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt. Wilcher left the group after their first album...

, 1910 Fruitgum Company

1910 Fruitgum Company

The 1910 Fruitgum Company is an American bubblegum pop band of the 1960s. The group's biggest hits included "Simon Says," "1, 2, 3, Red Light," "May I Take A Giant Step," "Special Delivery," "Goody Goody Gumdrops," and "Indian Giver." Guitarist Frank Jeckell claimed to have adopted the name from a...

, and Michael Bublé

Michael Bublé

Michael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer. He has won several awards, including three Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. His first album reached the top ten in Canada and the UK. He found worldwide commercial success with his 2005 album It's Time, and his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible was...

. The best known version in the UK and Europe is the cover by the disco

Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

 group Boney M

Boney M

Boney M. is a Eurodisco group created by German record producer Frank Farian. Originally based in Germany, the four original members of the group's official line-up were Jamaicans Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett, Maizie Williams from Montserrat and Bobby Farrell from Aruba...

 on their Christmas Album

Christmas Album (Boney M. album)

Germany7"* "Little Drummer Boy" - 4:27 / "6 Years Of Boney M. Hits " - 4:48 * "Zion's Daughter" - 3:50 / "White Christmas" - 3:15 12"* "6 Years Of Boney M Hits Germany7"* "Little Drummer Boy" - 4:27 / "6 Years Of Boney M. Hits (Boney M. on 45)" (7" Edit) - 4:48 (Hansa Records 103 777-100, 1981)*...

released in 1981.