While the holiday season seldom announces itself, there are always signs. The TV Christmas commercials; the department-store displays; the terrifying inescapability of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” Released in 1994, the song embarked on a 25-year journey to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Now the best-selling Christmas tune of all time in the U.S., “All I Want for Christmas is You” heralds the beginning of merrier, brighter times. And apparently, this year’s time is now.
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Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” re-entered the Hot 100 at No. 31 for the week of Nov. 15. According to Billboard, the song appears on the Hot 100 for the first time thanks to its activity, in part, during Halloween, as the latest list reflects the tracking week beginning Oct. 31.
Carey’s holiday tune wasn’t the only Yuletide jam to resurface on the charts this week, with Wham!’s “Last Christmas” landing at No. 43.
So go ahead—wrap those presents. Decorate that Christmas tree. Who cares if Thanksgiving is still nearly two weeks away? The “Queen of Christmas” has spoken.
Mariah Carey Put Christmas Music on the Map
Today in 2025, a pop star releasing a Christmas album almost seems quaint. But when Mariah Carey decided to record Merry Christmas, her first Yuletide album, in 1994, putting out an entire record of holiday-themed tunes typically signaled an artist whose career was winding down.
“Back then, you didn’t have a lot of artists with Christmas albums. It wasn’t a known science at all back then, and there was nobody who did new, big Christmas songs,” Walter Afanasieff, one of Carey’s frequent songwriting and producing collaborators during the ’90s, told Billboard in 2014. “So we were going to release it as kind of an everyday, ‘Hey, you know, we’re putting out a Christmas album. No big deal.’”
Soaring to No. 3 on the Billboard Top 200, Merry Christmas was certified triple platinum by the RIAA by the end of 1994. And three decades later, the album’s lead single is as relevant as ever.
“When I wrote [it], I had absolutely no idea the impact the song would eventually have worldwide,” Carey told Billboard in 2021. “How could I?”
Featured image by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for MTV
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