John Denver stated in an interview that he was shooting this movie when the Challenger space shuttle disaster occurred in January 1986. When he was informed of the crash, he sat down, started playing his guitar and created his song "Flying For Me". Additionally, the song that he sings to his daughter at one point in the movie is a song called "Love Again". Both songs were featured on John's "One World" album, which was released the same year as this movie and was the last album he released under RCA.
The year the movie was filmed in Georgetown was an exceptionally warm winter, so there was no snow. Tractor trailers hauled snow in each night to create the scenes for the next day's shooting.
The song that John Denver sings in the movie while putting his daughter to bed is "Love Again".
Three people from The Christmas Gift have a connection through the TV show M.A.S.H.. Edward Winter (Mr. Renfield) played Col. Flagg, Mary Wickes (Aunt Henny) played a visiting head nurse, Col. Reese and James Callahan (Mayor Truesdale) played Hawkeye's visiting friend Tommy.
CBS, the original broadcaster of the film, gained the underlying rights in 2006. CBS's rights to the telefilm are exercised through Spelling Television, which acquired most of Taft Broadcasting's programming assets, including the Sunn Classic Pictures library, in 1989, although the DVD release from CBS/Paramount lists Evergreen Programs, formerly a division of Worldvision Enterprises, as the copyright holder.