Annie Zaleski

What I love about this song is that it was written during the summer.

What happened is that Mel was going to Robert's house just for, you know, a writing session.

And it was a very, very hot summer day.

And he was like, you know, getting in the Christmas spirit, writing this Christmas song, maybe this will cool me down.

And so they ended up writing the song in like 45 minutes.

And Nat King Cole, you know, liked the song enough that he recorded it the following year twice.

Thanks for having me.

Christmas music, I've always been a longtime fan ever since I was a small child.

And I think one of the things that I'm really fascinated by is that you can really see the world history, social movements, and they're all reflected in Christmas music.

So when you look at the history of Christmas music across the decades, you can kind of see how American culture has moved forward.

You know, so that was written by Irving Berlin.

I don't think Irving Berlin needs any introduction.

He's one of the greatest composers in American history.

And he actually ended up writing it for a movie called Holiday Inn.

And that came out in 1942.

However, White Christmas came out the year before and basically emerged during the Christmas season right after World War II broke out.

The song was actually, he played it on his radio show.

The song was actually shipped to the UK that year, late 1941, to kind of provide solace for troops.

And what I just really love about this song is that it's reassuring.

You know, it's a very, he's very empathetic about it.