From Movie Tie-In to ‘Unprecedented’ Blockbuster: How Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ Conquered the Holidays

When Christmas comes around, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that Bing. With an estimated 50 million physical singles sold, Bing Crosby’s version of “White Christmas” is the best-selling recording of all time, according to Guinness World Records. (The Billboard Hot 100 wasn’t around yet when it came out.) It “deals with [the] singer’s nostalgia for the peaceful, gracious Christmases of yore,” read a review in the Aug. 8, 1942, issue of Billboard. “This tune will become more and more important.” Perhaps the magazine had been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.

‘Faithful’ Hit

When the Jan. 10, 1942, Billboard rounded up the “in demand” Christmas recordings of 1941, “Bing Crosby standbys” such as “Silent Night” and “Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)” scored as “the best bets.” But a better bet was a song still in the making. The May 2 issue reported that “insiders whisper of a Crosby rendition of a tune called ‘White Christmas’ in terms both warm and wonderful.”

We’re ‘Inn’ the Money

When the Irving Berlin song debuted in Holiday Inn, starring Crosby, the Aug. 15, 1942, Billboard hailed it as “a dilly of a musical” that boasted “two sock hits, ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Be Careful, It’s My Heart.’ ” By Sept. 19, demand was growing, despite industry Grinchitude: “Because it deals with Christmas the publishers have not been allowing it to be played on the air and have not encouraged its sale. A few towns, however, have gobbled it up.”

‘Christmas’ Comes Early

“Neither calendar makers nor pub[lisher] could hold it back,” reported the Oct. 13, 1942, Billboard of Berlin’s song, which covered “the coin phono network like a blanket of snow and pulls those nickels as if old Santa himself were throwing the pitch.” The label could barely keep up: “If Decca can meet the demand,” according to a story in the Nov. 14 issue, it “will be 1942’s top-selling record.” By the Dec. 26 issue, it was the “biggest seller in the company’s history,” sleighing past 1 million.

Green Christmas

The song was a gift that kept on giving. “Decca Records has reported an unprecedented advance sale of more than 500,000” of the Merry Christmas album, “Crosby’s plattering of Yuletide classics,” reported the Oct. 18, 1947, Billboard. The 1954 film White Christmas, starring Crosby and stuffed with more Berlin classics, stoked the fires of demand. “It makes little or no difference whether Crosby is a current favorite with the teen-aged record customers,” according to the Dec. 4, 1954, issue. “When Christmas rolls around, everyone — but everyone — heads to the nearest record shop to buy Bing’s versions of these seasonal songs.”

The Bing of Rock

Not long after “taping a television special in England with David Bowie for airing on CBS-TV,” Crosby died at 74 of a heart attack on a golf course in Spain, reported the Oct. 22, 1977, Billboard. While Crosby had dozens of hits, he remains “best known” for “White Christmas,” a “perennial holiday seller.” Days are still merry and bright: Crosby’s recording of the song has scored 698.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams through Nov. 20, according to Luminate. The Bing is gone but he’s not forgotten.

This story appears in the Dec. 6, 2025, issue of Billboard.