Aurora Starchild
Mariah Carey deserves a spot at the top of the Christmas tree. The Queen of Christmas has done it once again, melting our hearts with the reminder that Christmas is right around the corner. She just announced a new 2-hour Holiday Special, Merry Christmas to All!, set to premiere on December 20, 2022.
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For Mariah Carey, Christmas Begins Right After Halloween
Ever since Mariah Carey released her classic hit, “All I Want for Christmas is You,” she’s been a staple of millions of households’ Christmas seasons. Dolly Parton and Jimmy Fallon so succinctly sang about this in their recently released Christmas song “It’s Almost Too Early for Christmas.” Their lyrics mentioned the singer: “Let’s turn on the lights for Mariah / Tell Rudolph to shine up his nose / It’s almost too early for Christmas / But why don’t we see how it goes.”
Serendipitously, that song was released during Fallon’s Halloween special. That happened to be the same day that Mariah made her own big announcement.
In a video posted to Instagram and Twitter on Halloween, Mariah is seen riding a bicycle and dressed like a sexy Wicked Witch from the West. It starts out in black and white, referencing the Wizard of Oz. Then all of a sudden, Mariah is dressed in a sexy Santa outfit, everything’s in color, and she hits a glass-shattering note. “It’s time!”
Sitting on a plush reindeer, we hear “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the song that gets so many hearts pumping with nostalgia.
Mariah’s Merry Christmas to All! Christmas Review Includes Tour Then 2-Hour TV Special
This year, Mariah is going on a 2-concert Christmas review tour leading up to her 2-hour special. It will be filmed at Madison Square Garden. The Merry Christmas to All! tour begins in Toronto, Canada, on December 11. It ends in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on December 13.
Mariah Carey, Mariah “Claus,” Mariah the Christmas Angel — whatever you want to call her, earned a well-deserved spot in our living rooms and hearts over the Christmas season. In a mini-documentary released by Amazon two years ago, Mariah explained how she always loved Christmas. But somehow, the holiday kept getting ruined by her family. That gave her the resolve to change things.
“The thing is, I always wanted Christmas to be perfect,” said the singer in Mariah Carey is Christmas: The Story of “All I Want for Christmas is You.”
“And I always looked forward to the Holidays,” Mariah continued. “And then I have this incredibly dysfunctional family that would ruin it every year. Not my mom. My mom would try to make it fun. But we didn’t have a lot of money. So sometimes she would wrap up fruit and whatever it was that she could afford. And I was like, when I grow up, I’m never gonna let that happen.”
How “All I Want for Christmas Is You” Changed Christmas for Millions
Fast-forward to 1994. Mariah Carey had only released three studio albums and she was approached by her managers to do a Christmas album. Thinking it was a strange move because usually, artists do holiday special albums later in their careers, she went with it anyways.
And it was a genius move. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released with her Christmas album. The song was co-written by Carey and Walter Afanasieff and was a big hit.
But there was something more. The song wasn’t a one-hit-wonder. It actually became increasingly popular over the years, eventually reaching Billboard’s Hot 100’s Top 10 in 2017. The following year, it reached the No. 2 spot in the Hot 100. It spent 34 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100 list before finally reaching No. 1 in December 2019. That means that 25 years after the initial release of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the song was not just still popular — but the most popular song during the Christmas season.
Who Is The Real “Queen of Christmas,” Anyways?
It’s no wonder, then, that Mariah Carey has a reputation as the Queen of Christmas. In fact, Mariah actually tried to register a trademark with “Queen of Christmas.” But two other singers, Darlene Love, and Elizabeth Chan, fought the effort. Chan went to court over the issue and the court sided with her. The court ultimately prevented Mariah from being the only “Queen of Christmas.”
That’s not the only intellectual property issue that’s arisen surrounding Mariah Carey’s luminous rise as the Christmas Angel of pop. Earlier this year, Andy Stone of Vince Vance & the Valiants tried to sue Mariah for “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” He claimed that he initially wrote a song of the same name. His song was released in 1989 and reached the Billboard Hot 100 the year prior to Mariah’s release of her song, in 1993. Stone claimed IP infringement but finally dropped the lawsuit a couple weeks ago.
And as far as all the adoration goes, it may warm you to know that, while Mariah is a bit of a businesswoman, she’s not really trying to steal the spotlight from what Christmas is all about. Speaking about the “Queen of Christmas” thing, she said:
“That was other people, and I just want to humbly say that I don’t consider myself that. I’m someone that loves Christmas, that happened to be blessed to write ‘All I want For Christmas Is You.’ And a lot of other Christmas songs. And let’s face it, you know, everybody’s faith is what it is. But to me, [the Virgin] Mary is the Queen of Christmas.”
Mariah Carey, per Variety
Silke Jasso contributed to this article.
