Songfacts®:

• In this upbeat Christmas song, Elton John invites us in to watch the snow fall forever and ever as we eat, drink and be merry. It's structured like a pop song, written when Elton was near his creative peak. The word "Christmas" gets mentioned 20 times along with a gift basket of holiday clichés like sleigh bells and mistletoe.
• In her biography Elton John in His Own Words, Susan Black quotes Elton thus: "The Christmas single is a real loon about and something we'd like to do a lot more of. We've never written a song especially tailored to be a single."
  
  Elton and his lyricist, Bernie Taupin, wrote it as a thank you card to their fans; 1973 was a particularly good year for Elton, with two hit albums: Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
• "Step Into Christmas" was written on a Sunday morning and recorded in the afternoon at the London Trident Studios, sparked by a riff Elton's guitar player, Davey Johnstone, came up with. The single was released in November 1973 and received heavy airplay, although it only reached #24 on the UK chart. It may have done better, but buyers may have been put off by the B-side: "Ho! Ho! Ho! (Who'd Be A Turkey At Christmas)."
  
  In America, the song never charted but gradually made its way onto holiday playlists, becoming a staple of the season. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2
• Despite its original lackluster chart performance, "Step Into Christmas" is now one of the UK's most-played Christmas songs. Since the addition of streaming data, the tune has become an annual visitor to the UK charts in the holiday period. In December 2018, it entered the Top 10 for the first time.
• Kiki Dee, who would later duet with Elton on the hit Don't Go Breaking My Heart," sang backup on "Step Into Christmas." Members of her band were in the studio at the same time, so Kiki and guitarist Jo Partridge joined Elton's band - Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson - to provide background vocals, while drummer Roger Pope played tambourine. According to Davey, producer Gus Dudgeon and engineer David Hentschel created the "reindeer" sound right after the first "the admission's free" line, with David playing the ARP synthesizer for that section.
• Elton and his team made a goofy video for the song that has the feel of the morning after a Christmas party, with confetti and felled balloons adorning Elton's piano. Bernie Taupin plays the bells in the video, and midway though, the band switch instruments. It's lots of goofy fun, and it still holds up, earning lots of airplay every Christmas season.
• Elton John released a new video for "Step Into Christmas" on December 18, 2024. The visual reimagines what it was like behind the scenes for the 1973 video, with British actress and model Cara Delevingne stepping into the role of Elton.
  
  The collaboration came about after they met at Glastonbury in June 2024 and talked about how much they'd love to work together if the right idea came up. "She's hilarious to spend time with, we both have quite a self-deprecating sense of humor," John said. "When someone suggested the idea of her playing me in a riff on the 1973 'Step Into Christmas' video, I just thought it was the perfect opportunity."