36-year-old tops the official singles chart with her cover of Demi Lovato's Skyscraper. Elsewhere, Robbie Williams narrowly maintains his hold on the album charts
Christmas No 1, Sam Bailey, with other finallists after winning this year's X Factor. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Thames/REX
X Factor winner Sam Bailey has won the race for the 2014 Christmas No 1, topping the official singles chart with Skyscraper. The 36-year-old mother of two sold twice as many copies as the week's next-best seller, Pharrell Williams, and sent Lily Allen plunging down the top ten to No 6.
"This is the last piece of my jigsaw puzzle," Bailey said in an interview with the Official Charts Company. "It really is the icing on the cake." Although Skyscraper previously reached No 7 with Demi Lovato, Bailey admitted that she wasn't familiar with the original version. "It was great, because I wasn't trying to be anybody else and I tried to sing it my way."
X Factor bosses recently revealed that Bailey won an exceptional eight of this season's 10 live shows. But her first week sales are also the singing competition's second-lowest ever: Bailey clinched the No 1 by selling just 149,000 copies of the single. Last year's winner, James Arthur, sold 490,000 copies of his debut single in the first week, while the all-time record-holder Shayne Ward, from X Factor's second series, sold 742,180 copies of That's My Goal in a mere five days.
All proceeds from sales of Skyscraper will be distributed between Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity and Together For Short Lives; George Osborne has even waived VAT on the release.
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Meanwhile, the runners-up for Christmas No 1 were Williams's Happy, which climbed two spots to No 2, Leona Lewis's One More Sleep, and AC/DC's Highway to Hell. Their 1979 rock anthem was this year's beneficiary of anti-X Factor campaigners, who helped Rage Against The Machine become the Christmas number one in 2009. This will be AC/DC's first UK top 10 hit - Highway To Hell only reached No 40 on its initial release, in 1979. The band's highest ever chart position is No 12, for Heatseeker in 1988.
Longer than the list of Christmas almosts is the list of singles that didn't even approach the top of the chart: Altern 8's comeback bid, Activ 8 (Come With Me) debuted at No 33; the Big Reunion, with members of 5ive, Atomic Kitten, B*Witched, Blue and more, are at No 21 and Avicii is at No 5.
Over on the albums chart, Robbie Williams's Swings Both Ways narrowly maintained its hold on the top spot. 12 years after his previous swing album topped the Christmas charts, Williams outsold One Direction's Midnight Memories by just 200 copies. This week's top five is filled out by Gary Barlow's Since I Saw You Last, Olly Murs' Right Place Right Time, and Beyoncé's self-titled fifth LP.
• This article was amended on 23 December 2013 to correct the release date of Highway to Hell
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