Due to the inclusion in the 1945 film of a scene featuring a Christmas pageant, both the film and the song have come to be associated with the Christmas season, although the song has no direct lyrical connection with the holiday (and, indeed, refers to the "red leaves" of autumn in the chorus). The Drifters recorded the song as the B-side of their 1954 "White Christmas" single, and several other artists have included it on Christmas albums; examples include Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans (A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, 1963); Andy Williams (Merry Christmas, 1965); Aaron Neville (Aaron Neville's Soulful Christmas, 1993); and Sheryl Crow (Home for Christmas, 2008).

A bawdy parody, "The Balls of Sarn't Major",^[4] is based on the song.

The song appears in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. In a skit called "Musical Mice", Ken Ewing (Terry Jones) claims to have trained mice to squeal at the specific pitches necessary to play the song (as he demonstrates with debatable success).^[5]

The Drifters' version is featured in the 1990 movie Goodfellas, in the Christmas Eve scene with Henry Hill and family, and the following scene where Stacks (Samuel L. Jackson) is shot dead by Tommy Devito (Joe Pesci).

This song is also associated with Saint Mary's College (Indiana),^{[citation needed]} Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College,^{[citation needed]} and Saint Mary's College of California.^{[citation needed]}

A version of this song is the anthem of State University of New York Maritime College, whose first training ship was the USS St. Mary's.^{[citation needed]}

This song is the anthem for the Brazilian school Colégio Santa Maria (São Paulo) that was created by American founders.^{[citation needed]}

• The Bells of St. Mary's sheet music at the Archive of Popular American Music, Music Library, UCLA Library