Based on the analysis of materials from the folklore archive of Pskov State University, recorded on the territories of the Pskov-Pechora Obozerye and Velikorechye during the folklore expeditions of the 1970s–2010s, the author of the article determines the place of Christmas songs in the overall Christmas and New Year traditional complex, identifies the persistent elements in their structure, clarifies the specifics of performing the songs in the folk environment. It was established that the performance of the Christmas carol was the central event of the Christmas procession and constitutes the center of its meaning. The practices of singing the Christmas carols in the house on Christmas morning and singing them outside in front of windows on Christmas Eve were noted. The songs were performed by groups of Christoslavs (people praising Jesus), sometimes mummers, among whom the male parts stood out. The Christoslavs were trying to follow the canonical song-recitative manner of church hymns. At the same time, the original Church Slavonic texts underwent significant changes in the mouths of illiterate singers (replacement of lexical units, compositional rearrangements and additions, combining the fragments of different liturgical texts into one, etc.). The article also provides a description of fragmentarily preserved or reviving traditional ritual actions associated with the Christmas-Yuletide complex. The songs performed by the Christoslavs during their processions gradually replaced the Yuletide songs, which had also been popular on these territories before. At the same time, the analysis of the material shows that the Christoslav songs transformed in the folk environment under the influence of the Yuletide songs. The Christmas songs acquire the features of spells for the well-being of the family for the coming year: texts open with a ritual introduction and finish with a demand for gifts. In the oral stories about the performance of Christmas songs, the “Yuletide” terminology dominates.