Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota. Her childhood was difficult: her mother died when she was four, and her strict stepmother didn’t make things any easier at home. Music became her refuge. She sang on local radio stations and was already working on her own show as a teenager.
At seventeen, she ran away to Fargo, where a radio director gave her a new name: Peggy Lee. That new beginning proved magical. In 1941, Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, heard her singing in a hotel bar in Chicago. He was immediately captivated and hired her as the singer for his orchestra. Within a short time, she scored her first major hit: “Why Don’t You Do Right?” — a song that made her world-famous.
Peggy developed a unique style: soft, intimate, almost whispering — but with enormous emotional power. She discovered that an audience became quieter when she sang more softly, and that became her trademark. In the 1950s, when winter fell mildly over Hollywood, Peggy Lee transformed her home into a glittering Christmas paradise. She loved Christmas—not just a little, but with an almost childlike joy that infected everyone around her. Her Christmas trees were famous: richly decorated, sparkling, and always with a personal touch that only Peggy could conceive.
On Christmas Eve, she often sat at her piano, a cup of hot chocolate beside her, softly humming new melodies. Sometimes she wrote playful songs like “Don’t Forget to Feed the Reindeer,” sometimes moving numbers like “The Tree,” in which she sang about lights that make the world a little more beautiful.
“The Christmas Song,” “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” “White Christmas,” and, of course, her own “Christmas Carousel.” These songs appeared on her beloved Christmas albums Christmas Carousel (1960) and Happy Holiday (1965).
