Hark, the herald angels sing! At 7:40 a.m. this morning, 104.7/The Fish switched over to Christmas music, a format it will stick with through Dec. 25. B98.5 followed a few hours later.

Fish morning show Kevin & Taylor gave a caller the first request: Matthew West’s “Give This Christmas Away” with Amy Grant.

The past couple of years, two stations have gone all Christmas in metro Atlanta: The Fish intersperses traditional secular Christmas tunes (Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas”) with more religious tunes (MercyMe’s “Joseph’s Lullaby”). B98.5, the soft rock staiton, will stick mostly to the mainstream stuff (”White Christmas” by Bing Crosby, “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms). It switched over four hours after the Fish at about 11:55 a.m. this morning with Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” followed by Wham’s “Last Christmas.”

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Back in 2000, then soft rock station Peach 94.9 became the first station in Atlanta to go all Christmas for a significant length of time. It was a huge success. Two years later, The Fish joined the parade. Then in 2004, B98.5 succumbed to the siren call of Santa. For three years, Atlanta had three yuletide choices until midway through December 2006 when Peach dumped Christmas partway through December for country, 94.9/The Bull.

Since then, it’s been the Fish and B98.5. For most Christmas music buffs, that’s enough.

[UPDATE: A couple of readers below noted that B98.5 did play a few Christmas tunes before 7:40 a.m. Wednesday but the Fish did technically go all Christmas first. Semantics. I did kind of luck out by catching the switchover for both the Fish and B98.5.]