• Writer: Paul McCartney
• Producer: Paul McCartney
• Recorded: July 1979 at McCartney’s farmhouse in Scotland
• Released: November 1979
• Players: Paul McCartney–all instruments and vocals
• Appears On: Back To The Egg (EMI, 2000)
  and many compilations
• “Wonderful Christmas Time” was technically Paul McCartney‘s first solo single since 1971, as he spent the interim working with his band Wings.
• The song was written and recorded during the same sessions that produced the music for his 1980 solo album McCartney II.
• “Wonderful Christmas Time” made it to Number Six on the British pop chart but did not chart in the U.S., where it was not released as a commercial single.
• The vinyl single bears two messages on its run-out grooves — “To lift a glass… Xmas 79” on the A-side, and “Love from Rudi! Xmas 79” on the B-side. The B-side featured “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reggae,” a play on “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” that McCartney had recorded in 1976.
• “Wonderful Christmas Time” didn’t appear on a McCartney album until EMI reissued Wings’ Back To the Egg in 2000. It can also be found on a variety of holiday compilations.
• “Wonderful Christmas Time” was performed on Wings’ final UK tour in 1979, during which fake snow would shower the crowd.

FAST FORWARD:

• With “Wonderful Christmas Time” still on the British chart, McCartney was arrested in Tokyo for possession of marijuana on January 5th, 1980. He spent nine days in jail for the transgression.
• Wings broke up shortly after the bust, and McCartney resumed his solo career.
• In 1987, McCartney and John Lennon became the first non-American composers inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame.
• Already in as a Beatle, McCartney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 1999.
• McCartney won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1990.

McCartney is in the process of divorcing his wife Heather Mills.