“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is a Christmas song recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby who scored a top ten hit with the song. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” has since gone on to become a Christmas standard. Even in December 1965, astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell while on Gemini 7 requested “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” be played for them by the NASA ground crew.

The song is sung from the point of view of an overseas soldier during WWII, writing a letter to his family. In the message, he tells the family that he will be coming home, and to prepare the holiday for him including requests for “snow”, “mistletoe”, and “presents by the tree”. The song ends on a melancholy note, with the soldier saying “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”

The song was written by the lyricist Kim Gannon, and the Jewish composer Walter Kent. Buck Ram, who previously wrote a poem and song with the same title, was credited as a co-writer of the song following a lawsuit. The original 1943 release of the song by Bing Crosby on Decca Records listed only Walter Kent and Kim Gannon as the songwriters on the record label. Later pressings added the name of Buck Ram to the songwriting credit.

On October 4, 1943, Crosby recorded the song under the title “I’ll Be Home For Christmas (If Only In My Dreams)” with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra for Decca Records. Within a month of release, the song charted for eleven weeks, with a peak at number three. The next year, the song reached number nineteen on the charts.

The song touched the hearts of Americans, both soldiers and civilians, who were in the midst of World War II, and it earned Crosby his fifth gold record. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” became the most requested song at Christmas U.S.O. shows. Yank, the GI magazine, said Crosby “accomplished more for military morale than anyone else of that era”.

By Bing Crosby

By Frank Sinatra

Lyrics