On how the song came to be:

We cut that, as you do most Christmas songs, in the heat of summer. I remember I walked into the Quonset Hut where I did everything,” Lee says of the legendary Nashville studio. “[Producer] Owen [Bradley] had it all decked out like Christmas. I was only 12 going on 13, so that was a biggie to me. Everybody was dressed Christmassy and the lights were low. He had a Christmas tree. It was wonderful.”

Via Billboard

During the tracking week ending December 9, 2023, the song reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time. The song became Lee’s third number-one single as “I’m Sorry” and “I Want to Be Wanted” reached the top spot 65 years prior in 1960. Lee also became the oldest artist in history to earn a new #1 song on the chart at the age of 78 and holds the new record for the longest climb to #1 as the song was originally released in on 63 years prior on November 17, 1958.

Originally, in 2018, the song entered the top 10 for the first time, in over 58 years after it first appeared on the chart in 1960. On December 9, 2019, the song reached a new peak of #2. The song became the third-highest-charting holiday hit in the Hot 100’s 61-year archives at the time, also ranking in the top two spots simultaneously for the first time with Mariah’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. It became the first time two Christmas songs had taken the top two spots.

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."

– Via Billboard (2019)