"Merry Christmas Everyone" is a festive song recorded by Welsh singer-songwriter Shakin' Stevens. Written by Bob Heatlie and produced by Dave Edmunds, it was the fourth number one and last number one single for Shakin' Stevens on the UK Singles Chart. It was released on 25 November 1985 and was the Christmas number one for that year. Ever since it has been included on many top-selling Christmas collections and received frequent airplay every Christmas. In 2007, the song re-entered the UKtop 30 and reached number 22 on the Christmas chart. This is because downloads are now included in the UK Singles Chart; whereas in past years this would have been impossible unless there was a physical re-release of the song. From 2007 to 2017, the song charted in the UK at peak positions 22, 36, 49, 47, 42, 46, 54, 38, 26, 17 and 10. Originally only in the chart for eight weeks, it has since amassed over 60. In December 2018 it reached No. 9 in the UK chart, its highest position since 1985.
Background
"Merry Christmas Everyone" was recorded in 1984. Its original planned release was put back by a year to avoid clashing with the runaway success of Band Aid's charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", to which Stevens did not contribute.
Music video
The video shows a young girl named Samantha traveling by plane to a place called Santaworld where she meets up with Stevens who met her on a bus going to the place. Stevens is then seen riding with a woman dressed as an elf in a sleigh pulled by a horse and is taken to meet Santa Claus before going to a replica of Santa's workshop where children are seen playing with toys before going out with Santa on the sleigh and joins in a snowball fight with some other children and ends up hitting a snowman who starts to chase him. At the end of the video, Stevens is seen bidding farewell to Santa, the snowman and the children before going back into the sleigh with the woman. Filmed in Sweden the children included Shaky's son, daughter, their friends including Shaky's drummers; daughter the actor, Sarah J Price and competition winner Jeremy Cartwright who was holidaying in Wales prior to filming and can be seen sledging at speed down a hill.
In time for Christmas 2015, Shakin' Stevens released a new version of the song as a charity single in collaboration with The Salvation Army. It is a completely revamped version with folk and bluegrass influences and prominent use of banjo. The single was available as a download starting December 2015 with all proceeds going to The Salvation Army. The 2015 single did not chart on the UK Top 100, although the original by Shakin' Stevens made it to number 26 on the UK Top 100 Chart published on Christmas week.
