Brenda Lee revealed that she 'never realized' just how poor she was growing up. As her hit song, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, dominates radio waves over the holiday season, the Christmas legend, 80, opened up about about growing up with a single mother after her father was killed in a construction accident when she was just eight-years-old.
![[On Wednesday, December 18, Brenda took to Instagram to reveal that she had been awarded the Billions Club plaque by Spotify for her 1958 hit Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree reaching 1 billion streams on the platform]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/18/22/93294371-14207633-image-m-27_1734561833727.jpg)
The singer looked back on her childhood in rural Georgia and how, despite enduring tough times, she and her siblings never felt like they were living in poverty. '[My mom] handled it all real well, and I think that she did that because of us. She had three children. We never knew that we were poor,' she told d Southern Living.
![[Shockingly, Brenda was only 13-years-old when she recorded Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree in 1958; seen in December 2023]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/18/22/93293349-14207633-image-a-22_1734560052607.jpg)
'And I always poor, poor, pooor. With three O's! Because back then, in the South, if you didn't have anything to eat or times were a little hard, you just went to your aunt's house, or your uncle's house. Or your friend down the street's house.'. 'So, we never realized that we were poor because everybody was in the same boat, so to say,' the songstress admitted.
![[The track was written by Johnny Marks, who had also famously written Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and A Holly Jolly Christmas (pictured in 1960)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/18/22/93294353-14207633-image-a-26_1734560902215.jpg)
Brenda Lee revealed that she 'never realized' just how poor she was growing up; seen in November 2023. Instead, the Grammy Award-winning recording artist remembers the positive moments and special instances from when she was growing up. Brenda said her mother was a 'great cook' and insisted that she and her siblings could always rely on a neighbor if she had to work to earn money for food.
