Songfacts®:

• If "merry Christmas" is too generic, you can level up your greeting by wishing someone a "holly jolly Christmas." After all, it's the best time of the year.
  
  One of the more upbeat songs of the season, "A Holly Jolly Christmas" was made famous by Burl Ives, a very successful stage and screen actor as well as a folk singer. He acted in the film Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, among others, and his list of songs include "A Little Bitty Tear" and "A Funny Way Of Laughin'."
• This song was written by songwriter Johnny Marks, who had already written the Christmas classic "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer," a song that proved so popular, the stop-motion animators at Rankin-Bass created a half-hour TV special to expand on the song. Ives was brought in for star power to play the narrator, Sam the Snowman, and take over several songs originally slated for the character of Yukon Cornelius. One was "Silver And Gold," and "A Holly Jolly Christmas" was the other.
  
  TV Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special brought the song back to the fore every season when it re-aired, tagging along with "Rudolph" as a holiday favorite.
• A version by Lady Antebellum was released as a single from their 2012 Christmas album On A Winter's Night. The trio recorded a video in Nashville, which was directed by TK McKamy. The clip follows a little boy's attempt to get his festive wish. "'A Holly Jolly Christmas' just has something kind of flirty about it," said L A's Hillary Scott. "So, when it came time to make the video, we really wanted it to feel lighthearted and fun with a sense of humor…something that just makes you smile."
• Ives performed this as a guest on the "Down Home Country Christmas" episode of Dolly Parton's TV show, Dolly, in 1987.
• "A Holly Jolly Christmas" has been featured on several TV shows, including Melrose Place, Roswell, My Name Is Earl, Chuck, Bones, and Mr. Robot.
• This is also a popular tune for movies set during Christmas, such as The Ref (1994), starring Denis Leary; The Family Man (2000); and Bad Santa (2003), starring Billy Bob Thornton.
• The song didn't chart when it was first released, but when Billboard accounted for streaming in their Hot 100 chart, it started placing - a clear indicator of the song's perennial holiday appeal. It made #46 in the Christmas of 2016, and #38 the following year.
• The song entered the Hot 100 Top 10 for the first time on the chart dated January 5, 2019. It was Burl Ives' first entry in the upper regions of the tally since "Funny Way Of Laughin'" peaked at #10 in 1962. The gap of 56 years, seven months and two weeks broke Andy Williams' record for the biggest gap between Top 10 hits.
• Michael Buble's version recorded for his 2011 Christmas album is the best known in the UK. Since 2017, it has been a regular visitor to the singles chart during the festive period. It reached the US Top 40 for the first time when the song entered the chart dated January 4, 2025 at #37.