CANTON -- Royalties from one of most beloved Christmas songs, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” have contributed more than $30,000 to St. Lawrence University this year.

Those stocking stuffers have been coming in every month for 16 years, since 2000 when a share of the royalties from the Christmas classic bequeathed to the university by songwriter J. Kimball “Kim” Gannon, St. Lawrence University Class of 1924, began to arrive.

To date, it has amounted to more than $461,200 in royalties for the university.

The song was popularized by Bing Crosby in 1943 and became a sentimental favorite in the middle of World War II. .

Since then, more than 250 artists and groups have the song, including Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Ann Murray, Amy Grant and Michael Bublé. In 2014, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) named “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” the 10th most-performed holiday song of the century.

Born in Brooklyn in 1900, Gannon went on to write a number of popular songs during the swing era. He also penned St. Lawrence’s alma mater.

He went on to a successful career as a lyricist, with some 200 popular songs to his name and three Academy Award nominations.