[1] In a UK-wide poll in December 2012, it was voted twelfth on the ITV television special The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song.

Rea said Driving Home for Christmas is a "car version of a carol",[10][11] and that he wrote it for Van Morrison but did not manage to get it to him.

[12] In the Guardian interview, Rea stated that he never played the song live until 2014 at Hammersmith Odeon; he recalls: "the gig was on 20 December, so the road crew kept badgering me to do it.

It was several years later that while testing pianos with keyboard player Max Middleton he found a tune that fit the lyrics.

[11] A video clip was broadcast on 23 December 1986 by Dutch pop music TV show TopPop, interspersed with stock footage of the motorways around Hilversum.

[15] In 2009, 21 years after the song was first released, an original video was made in aid of Shelter; all proceeds from digital download were donated to the charity.

The celebrities who featured in the video were Mike Read, David Hamilton, Martin Shaw, Kristian Digby, Gail Porter, Lizzie Cundy, Ewen MacIntosh, Carol Decker, Giles Vickers-Jones, and Lionel Blair.

[16] Upon its release as a single in 1988, David Giles of Record Mirror described "Driving Home for Christmas" as a "jaunty, happy song" with "the joys of the season and some lilting ripples of guitar".

Singer and television presenter Stacey Solomon covered the song in 2011 and it was released on 18 December 2011 as her debut single.

Originally intended to be used solely in commercials for supermarket chain Iceland and cabins, it was later released as a single due to popular demand, reaching number 27.

[68] The single was released on 18 December 2011 on iTunes with all proceeds going to Alzheimer's Research UK and children's hospice charity Together For Short Lives.