Christmas Songs #1: White Christmas Bing Crosby (1942)

Number 1: Festive Christmas Songs
Good Housekeeping: Nov. 30, 2019

White Christmas 
Bing Crosby (1942)

Bing Crosby's classic hit about a picturesque Christmas scene is one of the most popular holiday songs ever. Guinness World Records named it the best-selling single of all time.


This 8-line song that paints a picture of holiday nostalgia was written by Irving Berlin for the 1942 movie Holiday Inn, where Bing Crosby sings it from the perspective of a New Yorker stranded in sunny California during Christmas. 

Bing Crosby

The song enjoyed a sales resurgence every Christmas after it was first released in 1942. It went to number 1 that year in America and reached the top in 1945 and 1947. The song appeared on various Billboard charts every year until 1963, when it finally dropped off the Hot 100.

White Christmas 
Bing Crosby


White Christmas
Darlene Love (1963)

Phil Spector put this as the first track on his 1963 Christmas album A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. Spector had Darlene Love sing this one, and he used many of his favorite Los Angeles session musicians on the album, including a then-unknown Cher. 

Darlene Love, lead singer of the girl group "The Blossoms."

The sessions were notoriously tricky, with Cher explaining, 

"Philip was just insane about the Christmas album. We just never left the studio. I mean, you went home to take a shower, and you came back. We didn't go home for six weeks; we just were there. 

I had just turned 17, and I was thinking, How are all these old people doing this? I am dying; I can hardly drag myself outta bed. How are these old guys doing it?"

White Christmas 
Darlene Love

White Christmas 
Michael Bublé  (2019)

"White Christmas" is the most-recorded Christmas song; there have been more than 500 versions in several different languages. 

Michael Bublé 

Michael Bublé covered it on his 2011 Christmas album with Shania Twain. But in 2019, he released a new recording of "White Christmas," accompanied by an animated music video. It went to number 7 on Billboards US Holiday Digital Song Sales chart.

White Christmas 
Michael Bublé 

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