We have a new winner in the which-radio-station-will-go-all-Christmas-music sweepstakes in Milwaukee.

In the wee small hours of the morning — after Milwaukee had its second biggest Halloween snowstorm in history — “Pure Oldies 106.9” WRXS-FM (106.9) switched to all-Christmas music. Adult-contemporary station WLDB-FM (93.3) had been the first to go all Yule all the time in Milwaukee every year since 2016.

This is the earliest a Milwaukee radio station has gone all-Christmas in decades. Last year, WLDB made the switch first on Nov. 17. Right behind it were WRXS and WRIT-FM (95.7), which both made the jump the following day.

Keeping with its oldies format, typically playing music before the 1980s, WRXS’ early Christmas playlist included such songs as Judy Garland’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” Charles Brown’s “Merry Christmas Baby” and Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby,” Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means to Me” and John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).”

Actually, this is the second time WRXS has gone all Christmas in 2023. The oldies station switched to the holiday music format on July 25 as part of a “Christmas in July” promotion offering tickets to a live conversation with Chevy Chase following a screening of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” at the Riverside Theater on Dec. 28.

It not unheard of for Milwaukee radio stations to make the switch to all-Christmas music much earlier; in the aughts, WRIT and WMYX-FM (99.1) routinely jumped to an all-Yule format as early as Halloween. But in recent years — excepting the first year of the pandemic, when the need for Christmas spirit seemed higher — mid-November is when the sleigh bells started ringing in earnest.

But Christmas did come much earlier to other parts of the radio landscape in 2023. This year, WMGA-FM in Huntington, West Virginia, flipped to all-Christmas music on Oct. 19, according to radio industry site Radio Insight. Several other stations were expected to jump by Nov. 1.

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