It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Year: 1951

Written By: Meredith Willson

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Meredith Willson wrote the amazing Christmas classic, 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas' in 1951, although interestingly, the title of this song was originally 'It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas'.

The general consensus, although currently unproven is that Meredith Willson wrote the song while he was staying in Yarmouth's Grand Hotel. Though, reference to one of the trees at Frost Park which is directly across the road from the Grand Hotel in Yarmouth gives some platform for which people can speculate that 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas' was actually written while staying at Yarmouth's Grand Hotel. The lyric which gives rise to this speculations is a "tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well...".

The beauty of 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas' led to it later on being incorporated into the pre-Broadway version of the score of Meredith Willson's 1963 musical Here's Love. This version can be heard on the original cast recording of that show. The song is in a counterpoint to the new melody and lyrics, 'Pinecones and Holly Berries'.

Johnny Mathis recorded his own version of 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas' in 1986. This recording was for his album Christmas Eve with Johnny Mathis. This cover version happened to also be very popular, though this can be put down to the fact that it was included in the 1992 film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

The excellent standard of the song has led to it being recorded on many occasions by a variety of artists; such as by Perry Como and The Fontane Sisters with Mitchell Ayres & His Orchestra on September 10, 1951 and Bing Crosby on October 1, 1951.
As a well-renowned catchy song, 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas' was in turn chosen to be featured in the DVD version of Very Merry Christmas Songs which happens to be a part of Disney Sing Along Songs franchise. The mass popularity and cheerful tune to 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas' led to UK supermarket giant, Asda making the decision to use it in one of their adverts. They used it in one of their 2008 Christmas television adverts.