Stumblin' Along 12/7 '25
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
- History of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
- YouTube Rabbithole
Alright @YouTheReader,
Today’s tune is Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee.
Initially released in 1958, it didn’t become a hit on the charts until 1960, when Brenda Lee had already made a few hits. This Christmas jingle had a resurgence to #1 on the Billboard Charts in ‘23 and is currently in the Top 10 again this year.
(Source: @crucialcharts)
Miss Lee was only 12 years old when she recorded this song in a Nashville studio in 1958, which makes this hit even more special - a kid was singing it.
Home Alone spurred this tune’s comeback. Brenda Lee told Billboard in ‘19, “Somebody called me and said, ‘Have you seen the movie Home Alone? You ought to, because they’ve got ‘Rockin’ really featured in it.’ That’s when it really took off with the youngsters. I knew it was special, but you never know what’s going to be a hit – if you did, we’d all have hits every day. It has been a wonderful gift.”
Credit to Hank “Sugarfoot” Garland for the guitar and Boots Randolph for the saxophone. Both are iconic performances with cool names.
Brenda Lee never got the chance to make a music video for this song as a kid, but she put something together for the tune’s 66th anniversary.
(Source: YouTube Rabbithole Below)
The first verse references mistletoe and caroling, which are old-fashioned Christmas traditions. This tune was during the 1950s “sock hop” era, when people were dancing their socks off and starting new traditions in the new old-fashioned way.
Week to Week Notes’ 🎄 Power Rankings
17. Christmas Lights by Coldplay
16. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer by Elmo & Patsy
15. Step Into Christmas by Elton John
14. Someday At Christmas by Stevie Wonder
13. Linus & Lucy by Charlie Brown Peanuts
12. Carol of the Bells by Mykola Leontovych
11. It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Andy Williams
10. All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey
9. Frosty the Snowman by Jimmy Durante
8. Feliz Navidad by José Feliciano
7. Little Saint Nick by The Beach Boys
6. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Gene Autry
5. Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town by Bruce Springsteen
4. Sleigh Ride by The Ronettes
3. Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses
2. Run Rudolph Run by Chuck Berry
1. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee
On to the Rockefeller Tree…
This year’s Christmas Tree lighting at Rockefeller Center already took place on Wednesday. The tree this year weighs 11 tons and is decorated with over 50k multi-colored LED lights. Atop the tree is a 3D Swarovski star. This year’s Christmas Tree is from Greenbush, New York. Here’s a bit about the history of Rockefeller Center…
(Source: NBC’s Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree)
John D. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, on July 8, 1839. As a kid, he grew up raising turkeys, selling candy, and doing odd jobs to make a buck. In 1853, the Rockefeller family moved from upstate New York to Cleveland, Ohio. At 16, John D. Rockefeller was an office clerk who bought, sold, and shipped grain, coal, and other commodities. By the age of 20, Rockefeller had started his own commission firm, and that same year, in 1859, America’s first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Cleveland, Ohio, is only about a 2-hour drive or 123 miles from Titusville, Pennsylvania, so it would make sense that Rockefeller would enter the booming new oil industry by investing in a Cleveland refinery in 1863.
In 1865, John D. Rockefeller figured he could make a real fortune in the oil industry, so he borrowed money to buy out some of his partners to take full control of the largest refinery in Cleveland, Ohio. Not only was oil important for things like railroads and boats at the time, but kerosene, made from petroleum, was used in lamps. A pretty important commodity, considering Thomas Edison (or Pearl River, New York’s inventor Julius Braunsdorf) wouldn’t invent the lightbulb until the 1870s. In 1870, Rockefeller formed the Standard Oil Company of Ohio and was the largest shareholder. It grew into a monopoly as Rockefeller started owning all aspects of the oil industry while buying out rival refineries. By 1882, it was known as the Stand Oil Trust, which controlled 90% of the nation’s refineries and pipelines. The company handled everything from building its own oil barrels to hiring its own scientists to figure out different ways to use oil.
In 1890, the US Congress decided to get off its arse and pass the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up trusts such as Standard Oil. Rockefeller’s trust would be dissolved in Ohio in 1892. However, the businessman just changed the holding company's primary location to New Jersey, which gave him some time. In 1911, after years of back-and-forth in the courts, the US Supreme Court finally ruled that Standard Oil of New Jersey violated the antitrust laws. It was forced to be dismantled and would eventually be broken up into more than 30 individual companies, including ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron today. John D. Rockefeller stepped back from the day-to-day operations of Standard Oil in the mid-1890s, but he still owned 25% of the company's shares. When the US Supreme Court broke up Standard Oil, not only didn’t John D. Rockefeller lose a cent, but his shares doubled in price, and he became the richest man in America.
(Source: History Channel)
With $900 million in 1913 (today’s equivalent of almost $15 billion), John D. Rockefeller decided to spend a great deal of it on philanthropy. He had the vision to create a “city within a city,” and on October 1, 1928, Rockefeller leased land from Columbia University for $100 million to begin construction of Rockefeller Center. The initial idea was to build a complex for the Metropolitan Opera with retail stores. The MET’s opera house would withdraw, but Radio Corporation of America (RCA) became interested. RCA figured they could test it out by using one of its experimental subsidiaries called the National Broadcasting Company, otherwise known as NBC.
In the middle of the Great Depression on Christmas Eve of 1931, Irish & Italian-American construction workers at Rockefeller Center pooled their money together to purchase the original Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. It was 20 feet tall and covered with homemade garlands from the workers’ families. By March 1932, construction began on 30 Rockefeller Plaza and Radio City Music Hall. Although the 1931 Christmas Tree was a bit modest and on a construction site, it drew plenty of popularity, so it was decided in 1933 that it would become an annual tradition. They held the first official lighting ceremony in December of 1933. By 1936, Rockefeller Center was well on its way to becoming the “worldwide symbol of Christmas,” so they decided to add the ice rink.
During WWII, the tree was switched to a more patriotic theme with red, white, and blue globes along with a painted wooden star. In 1944, the Christmas Tree remained unlit due to wartime blackout restrictions. However, by Christmas of 1945, they more than made up for it by including six ultraviolet projectors. The tree that year looked like it had over 700 fluorescent globes that were glowing. By the 1950s, the trees started to get much larger, requiring 20 workers on scaffolding and 9 days to fully decorate. In 1951, NBC televised the first tree lighting on The Kate Smith Show. (Yes, that is the same Kate Smith who used to have her recorded rendition of God Bless America at Yankee Stadium’s 7th Inning Stretch).
(Source: The History of the Rockefeller Tree)
