This Christmas

This Christmas: Creation, Recording, and Chart History

Chris Brown released "This Christmas" as a single accompanying his holiday album This Christmas, which was issued in October 2007 through Jive Records. The album represented Brown's first entry into the traditional holiday record format, a commercially reliable territory for established pop and R&B artists that had long been part of the seasonal music landscape. Brown was 18 years old at the time of the album's release and had already established himself as one of the most commercially successful young artists in contemporary R&B following his 2005 debut and the multi-platinum success of his second studio album Exclusive, released in November 2007.

The title track "This Christmas" is a cover of a song originally written and recorded by Donny Hathaway in 1970. Hathaway's version was a landmark in soul music, featuring his expressive vocal performance, warm horn arrangements, and a production style rooted in the classic soul and funk sounds of the early 1970s. The song had become a recognized holiday standard in the R&B and soul tradition in the decades following its initial release, covered by numerous artists across multiple generations. Brown's decision to record his own version as the centerpiece of a holiday album was consistent with the practice of contemporary R&B artists reinterpreting classic soul holiday material.

Brown's recording of "This Christmas" updated Hathaway's original with contemporary production elements while retaining the fundamental melodic and harmonic structure that had made the song a classic. The arrangement incorporated modern R&B production techniques alongside elements of the horn-driven sound that characterized the Hathaway original, creating a version that could appeal to listeners familiar with the classic recording while also reaching audiences who had come to Brown through his own contemporary output. The production balanced reverence for the source material with a distinctly contemporary execution.

On the Billboard Hot 100, "This Christmas" debuted at number 89 in the chart dated December 8, 2007. The chart trajectory that followed was characteristic of holiday songs, which typically see activity concentrated in the weeks immediately surrounding Christmas. The track climbed to number 80 on December 15, before dipping slightly to 96 on December 22 as competing holiday content received increased airplay, then rebounded to number 74 on December 29 and achieved its peak position of number 62 on the chart dated January 5, 2008. The single spent five weeks on the Hot 100.

The late December through early January peak timing is a common pattern for holiday R&B singles that gain momentum through both Christmas-week radio saturation and post-holiday digital download purchasing, as listeners who encountered the song during holiday celebrations sought to add it to their personal music collections. Brown's version benefited from the broad promotional context of the This Christmas album campaign and from his significant radio presence during this period.

The release of "This Christmas" occurred within weeks of the release of Exclusive, Brown's second studio album, which debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and eventually went triple platinum. This meant that Brown was among the most commercially prominent artists in R&B during the late 2007 holiday season, giving the holiday single and album substantial promotional infrastructure and media attention. Radio programmers were receptive to the single as part of the broader cycle of Brown promotion during this period.

The song accumulated over 103 million views on YouTube in the years following its release, reflecting the sustained engagement with the track as a holiday perennial. Holiday songs often accrue substantial view counts over many years as listeners return to them seasonally, and Brown's version of "This Christmas" benefits from this dynamic, circulating annually during the winter holiday season and accumulating viewership across multiple December cycles rather than in a single concentrated period.

The song remains among the most recognized contemporary R&B holiday tracks of the late 2000s and continues to receive seasonal radio airplay and playlist placement as part of the broader rotation of holiday R&B music that has developed around the Donny Hathaway original and its various interpretations over the decades.