Am I really dreaming of a white Christmas?

Bing Crosby’s "White Christmas" is generally assumed to be the best selling single of all time. So if I’m going to put together a Christmas-music-themed countdown-to-Christmas blog post series, I should include this classic.

Why though? It’s not all that catchy. It borders on sad. I don’t actually dislike it, the way I dislike say, "Last Christmas".* It’s just that the message seems to be: Christmas was fun once, but now it’s not. Or is it about racism? Global warming? It’s not bad, but I can’t really relate.

So I did some research. Meaning, I looked this up on Wikipedia. And it turns out, Irving Berlin’s original version of the song explained why the singer was not experiencing a white Christmas: this takes place in Beverly Hills, in California.

The sun is shining, the grass is green,
The orange and palm trees sway.

There’s never been such a day
in Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it’s December the twenty-fourth,
And I am longing to be up North

That makes so much more sense to me! I spent one Christmas in Sydney, Australia, and it doesn’t feel like Christmas when Santa wears shorts.

• Bing Crosby’s version Spotify
• Darlene Love’s version explains the lack of snow Spotify
• Keane’s version is about gloomy gray rainy-weather Christmas in London YouTube

*I really wish "Last Christmas" were called "Last Easter" or "Last Summer" or "Last Weekend" so that it wouldn’t be recognized as a "Christmas" hit, and I wouldn’t have to hear it every time I go to a coffee shop or enter a store in December.