Sir Elton John is celebrating an early Christmas present after his festive tune Step Into Christmas went platinum in the US.
The 78-year-old music icon looked delighted as he posed for a snap with a plaque to show the Christmas classic, which was first released in 1973, is now a platinum single in America, and 4x platinum in the UK.
He shared a picture of himself in front of the two plaques, and he wrote in the caption: “A special Christmas present to me! Step Into Christmas has gone platinum in the US and 4× platinum in the UK.”
Elton admitted it was “very special” to see his tunes recognised for such honours, and he was pleased to see Step Into Christmas had made it into the UK Singles Chart’s Top 10 songs this Christmas.
The tune will be ninth on Christmas Day, just below Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath the Tree, after Kylie Minogue’s Xmas earned the UK’s festive number one spot.
He added: “To think a song released over 50 years ago is still part of so many people’s festivities (and even sat in the UK Top 10 again this year!) is very special.”
Elton also thanked his fans for listening to the festive tune each year.
He added: “Thank you to everyone who keeps stepping into Christmas, year after year!”
Elton recently shared an Instagram video at his home set to his classic festive hit Step Into Christmas, but some fans took the opportunity to criticise his cleanliness.
However, he later took to social media again to hit back at comments about his “dirty” kitchen and insist how serious he takes cleaning.
He said: “Hello people, it’s Elton John here. A couple of weeks ago, I did some videos in this kitchen about how crazy Step Into Christmas was driving me, and it got an incredible response, which I was quite startled about.
“A lot of the response was kind of negative about how dirty my oven was. My oven door, my oven window. And I can assure you, I don’t have anything dirty in this house. I’ve never had anything dirty. I’m not a dirty person.”