Timed to coincide with the pre-Christmas business RCA Victor released "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" / "How Would You Like To Be" on November 15, 1966. Beginning on December 3rd Billboard listed the 45 on their special "Christmas Chart" where it stayed four weeks and peaked at number 2. The following year the single charted again, this time reaching number 12. In Great Britain "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" peaked at number 11, globally the single sold a million copies. Translated to the present this would be 150 million paid streams. Compared to his previous Xmas-single "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!" / "Blue Christmas" this one was nothing but a commercial failture.

On the streaming platforms this single is not available. "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" can be found as a bonus track on "Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas" (1971), "How Would You Like To Be" is part of the soundtrack album "It Happened At The World's Fair" (1963).  In 2016 the complete Presley catalogue was restored and remastered by Vic Anesini for a boxed set of 60 compact discs called "The Album Collection". Sony Music Entertainment provides the streaming platforms with the same versions of the individual tracks, albeit in 24 bit/90 khz flac. That means, if the platform of your choice supports high resolution audio, you can enjoy the songs in the same quality Sony used to scan and master them. On Spotify, which has a market share of approximately 30% and is the only platform that publishes streaming figures, "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" accumulates 16 million streams. "How Would You Like To Be" is more or less ignored and never passed the million mark. By the way: Today's situation isn't much different to the 1960s. "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" has just 30% of the streams of the previously released "Santa Claus Is Back In Town!".

The cover was designed with a promo photo for the MGM movie "Spinout". RCA Victor also used the sleeve to promote the Presley releases in the new stereo8 format.

On June 10, 1966 there was a session at the RCA Studio B in Nashville/Tennessee. Felton Jarvis (producer) and James Malloy (sound engineer) wanted to record "Indescribably Blue", "I'll Remember You" and "If Every Day Was Like Christmas". The band consisted of Scotty Moore (guitar), D.J. Fontana (drums), Harold Bradley (guitar), Chip Young (guitar), Bob Moore (bass), Murrey Harman (drums and bongos), Henry Slaughter (organ), Davis Briggs (piano), Pete Drake (steel guitar) and Rufus Long (saxophone). Harmony vocals were provided by The Jordanaires (Gordon Stoker, Neal Matthews, Hoyt Hawkins and Ray Walker), The Imperials (Jake Hess, Jimmie Murray, Gary McSpadden, Armond Morales and Henry Slaughter) as well as Millie Kirkham, June Page and Dolores Edgin. Because Elvis fell ill he stayed at his hotel and had Red West recording and arranging the songs. His vocals were replaced by Elvis on June 12th. Eight days later David Briggs added a celesta to "If Every Day Was Like Christmas".

The singer tells us about his pre-christmas impressions and comes to realize how wonderful this world could be if every day was like this one. I like the song a lot, Elvis is in fine voice, especially the chorus is great. The rhythm track was recorded on June 10, 1966 at the RCA Studio B in Nashville/Tennessee. Two days later the king put his voice on the recording and needed two takes to get it right. In 1970 RCA's subsidiary CAMDEN released the track on "Elvis' Christmas Album".

In the movie "It Happened At The World's Fair" the children's song is sung by Elvis and Vicky Tiu, but on the record version we just hear the voice of Mr. Presley. The king needed six takes for this song when he recorded it on September 22, 1962. The composers are Ben Raleigh and Mark Barkan. Originally the song had been released in 1963 on the soundtrack album of the movie. CAMDEN used it again in 1972 on the compilation "Elvis Sings Hits From His Movies - Volume 1".