Mel Torme and Bob Wells were songwriting partners, and used to take turns going over to each others' homes to write songs. One particularly hot July day, Mel drove over to Bob's house in Toluca Lake, California. When he got there he walked into the house, couldn't find Bob, but found a spiral notepad of paper with some words on it: "Chestnuts roasting, Jack Frost nipping, Yuletide Carols, folks dressed up like Eskimos." When Mel found Bob, he asked him, "What's this?" and Bob said, "It's so blistering hot here, and I thought it would be fun to see if I could write something about a totally different season, the winter season, Christmas season, and see if I could mentally, virtually cool off." Mel said, "Not only have you also cooled me off, but I think you've got a song here!" And the duo wrote the rest of the song in about 35 minutes.