"I'll Be Home for Christmas" is a Christmas song, written by Walter Kent.
In 1943, this song joined "White Christmas" to become one of America's most popular holiday songs. The recording by Bing Crosby shot to the top ten of the record charts that year and became a holiday musical tradition in the United States.
On October 4, 1943, Crosby recorded "I'll Be Home for Christmas" with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra for Decca Records. Within about a month of its being copyrighted the song hit the music charts and remained there for eleven weeks, peaking at number three. The following year, the song reached number nineteen on the charts. It touched a tender place in the hearts of Americans, both soldiers and civilians, who were then in the depths of World War II, and it earned Crosby his fifth gold record.
"I'll Be Home for Christmas" became the most requested song at Christmas U.S.O. shows in both Europe and the Pacific and Yank, the GI magazine, said Crosby accomplished more for military morale than anyone else of that era.
The song was recorded by Perry Como (1946), Frank Sinatra (1957), Doris Day (1964), The Beach Boys (1964), The Carpenters (1978), Michael Bublé (2003) and countless other artists.
In December 1965, having completed the first U.S. space rendezvous and set a record for the longest flight in the U.S. space program, the astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell hurtled back to earth aboard their Gemini 7 spacecraft. Asked by NASA communication personnel if they wanted any particular music piped up to them, the crew requested Bing Crosby's recording of "I'll Be Home for Christmas."
Source: Wikipedia
I'm dreaming tonight
Of a place I love
Even more than I usually do
And although I know
It's a long road back
I promise you
I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please, have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
