The Christmas season is about to begin, and as always, we can’t get through this season without the famous song of Mariah Carey. Although it’s not trendy to gloat about it, there are many people who unwaveringly adore the singer’s biggest Christmas hit, and they will certainly be happy to read the interesting facts below.
1. Mariah Carey didn’t want to issue a Christmas album
At least not in 1993, because she thought it was too early in her career to release a holiday album. Mariah Carey was enjoying the success of her third bestselling album, Music Box, when she began mapping out potential future projects with her management team of Sony CEO and her then-husband Tommy Mottola.
Someone suggested a Christmas album, but the conventional wisdom is that artists don’t record Christmas music at the height of their careers; this Christmas album is usually being saved for later when their popularity is on the wane. However, Carey eventually decided to defy tradition and attempt a Christmas album.
2. Instead of All I Want for Christmas is You, a cover was going to be included in the album
According to a 2019 Amazon Music mini-documentary about the song, Carey and her team initially thought that the singer was just going to interpret some classic Christmas songs in her own unique style.
“Come up with an original holiday song that will become a hit?” – muses the famous producer and American Idol judge Randy Jackson in the documentary. “Almost impossible.” But Mariah Carey isn’t the type to shy away from a challenge, so she got to work.
“I said, ‘Let me try to get into the Christmas spirit,’” Carey recalled. At the time, she was living in a house in upstate New York, and even though it wasn’t Christmas, she decorated a small tree and played 1946’s It’s A Wonderful Life on the TV downstairs while she experimented with a tune on the piano upstairs.
She compiled a list of things she’s associated with Christmas since childhood: “I wanted [the song] to be like something I’d heard when I was a kid.” This is how All I Want for Christmas is You was born, which then became an unavoidable Christmas classic itself.
3. Carey’s desire for the perfect Christmas inspired her to write the hit
“The thing is, I always wanted Christmas to be perfect,” Carey said of the song. “And I always looked forward to the holidays. But I had this incredibly dysfunctional family, and they destroyed it every year. Not my mom – my mom did everything to make the holidays nice – but we didn’t have a lot of money, so sometimes she wrapped a piece of fruit as a gift or whatever she could afford. And I thought, ‘When I grow up, I will never leave this. I’m going to make a perfect Christmas every year’.”
4. The song broke three Guinness records in 2019
In 2019, 25 years after the song’s release, Carey topped the Billboard U.S. All I Want for Christmas holds the record for the most charted holiday song by a solo artist on the Hot 100, the most streamed song on Spotify in 24 hours (female) and the most weeks spent in the UK singles top 10 by a Christmas song. Guinness World Records presented Carey with the titles at a concert at Caesars Colosseum in Las Vegas in November.
5. Mariah Carey’s favorite line in the song is “I won’t even wish for snow”
“It’s my favorite line because I always wish for snow,” Carey explained in the documentary. “I always want it to be, like, a special, festive winter wonderland.” Since having children of her own, Carey has been spending Christmases in Aspen and even renting real reindeer to take her family sledding.