It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas • Johnny Mathis
Christmas Song of the Day: It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas - Johnny Mathis
Yesterday: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, by Andy Williams
It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas
Johnny Mathis
Similar to yesterday’s song, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, I think most people share the joyful feeling associated with this song as well. When the Christmas season is in the air, there is a sense of exhilaration and anticipation that is hard to explain. The trees and the decorations are magical. And we start conspiring to buy Christmas gifts we can hardly afford, and drop hints regarding things we might like to receive from someone else. There’s no other time like Christmas. And this song, especially as sung by Johnny Mathis, one of the greats, says it so well.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas is a Christmas song written in 1951 by Meredith Willson. The song was originally entitled It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas. It has been recorded by many artists, but was a hit for Perry Como and The Fontaine Sisters with Mitchell Ayers & His Orchestra on September 18, 1951. Bing Crosby recorded a version on October 1, 1951, which was also widely played.
Johnny Mathis (also a 1950s & 60s crooner) recorded the song for his 1986 album Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis; this version gained popularity after its inclusion in the film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Gradually, Mathis's recording began to receive wide radio airplay, and for the past several years this version has been a Top 10 Christmas hit every year.
Origin of the Song:
A popular belief in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, holds that Willson wrote the song while staying in Yarmouth's Grand Hotel. The song makes reference to a "tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well..."; the park being Frost Park, directly across the road from the Grand Hotel, which still operates in a newer building on the same site as the old hotel. It also makes mention of the five and ten which was a store operating in Yarmouth at the time.
It is also possible that the "Grand Hotel" Willson mentions in the song was inspired by the historic Park Inn Hotelin his hometown of Mason City, Iowa. The Park Inn Hotel is the last remaining hotel in the world designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and is situated in downtown Mason City overlooking central park. Both towns lay claim to the song as their claim to fame, and Willson is no longer with us to solve the mystery. Either way, It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas is now part of modern Christmas lore, and we are the richer for it.
Well, it’s Christmas once more. The lyric says “But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be, on your own front door. Sure, it's Christmas once more.” I hope you have your own little decoration of some kind, and that it’s looking like Christmas in your world.
“Soon the bells will start. And the thing that'll make 'em ring
is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart.”
May your heart be singing in the days ahead....
It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas. 🎄
Enjoy listening to Johnny Mathis below.
Here are some favorite tracks from Spotify, as well as a classic video:
First, Johnny Mathis on Spotify:
It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas
Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis
A classic Johnny Mathis video:
Here is a video of It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas performed by Johnny Mathis on a televised Christmas Special:
Here is It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas performed by Michael Bublé, from his own television Christmas Special:
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Full Lyrics
(It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas)
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere you go
Take a look at the five and ten, it's glistening once again
With candy canes and silver lanes that glow
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in every store
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be
On your own front door
A pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots
Is the wish of Barney and Ben
Dolls that'll talk and will go for a walk
Is the hope of Janice and Jen
And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere you go
There's a tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well
It's the sturdy kind that doesn't mind the snow
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Soon the bells will start
And the thing that'll make 'em ring is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in every store
But the prettiest sight toy see is the holly that will be
On your own front door
Sure, it's Christmas once more
"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
