Christmas Statistics

Matthew Guerrieri, on his blog Soho the dog , examined hundreds of hymns highlighting a significant difference between the Christmas songs and the others: most of the Christmas carols begin on the 5th degree of the musical scale.
These are the statistics:

Christmas hymns (39):

Scale degree 1: 13 (33.3%)
Scale degree 3: 7 (18.0%)
Scale degree 5: 19 (48.7%)

Non-Christmas hymns (518):

Scale degree 1: 233 (45.0%)
Scale degree 3: 84 (16.2%)
Scale degree 5: 196 (37.8%)
Other: 5 (1%)

Of course it would be nice to know the reason, if there is one.

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