White Christmas

White Christmas is a song written in 1940 by Irving Berlin, and released in 1942 by Bing Crosby.

The song was first introduced in the 1942 film Holiday Inn, released August 1942, which was a musical about an inn which was only open on 12 holidays each year. Despite it's original August release, Holiday Inn became popular as a Christmas movie, because of the Christmas portion closing the film, and because of the popularity of the song "White Christmas".

"White Christmas" was also recorded by Bing Crosby that same year, and topped the charts in October 1942. In 1947, Bing Crosby re-recorded the song and re-released it. It has re-entered and often topped the charts many years since during the December Christmas season. It is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as having sold more than 50 million copies as a single, making it the best-selling single of all time in the United States.

In 1954, the movie White Christmas was released, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. The movie was a re-make of Holiday Inn, albeit with a specifically Christmas setting and theme (as opposed to the many-holidays-throughout-the-year setting of Holiday Inn), as well as a backstory set during World War II. It featured the Bing Crosby recording of "White Christmas" as well as other Irving Berlin songs, and remains a classic Christmas favorite.