“IT’S TIME!”
Mariah Carey, the “Queen of Christmas,” sings, bursting out of ice amid shards of crystalline glass as Christmas cheer erupts in green spruces and softly falling snow around her.
This annual video-commencement of the Christmas season marks the winter months where her 30- year-old hit song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” dominates charts. First released in 1994 as the lead single of Carey’s holiday album “Merry Christmas,” the romantic Christmas song was modestly popular at first, high on music charts only in the US and UK, according to BBC.
Around 2019, however, it skyrocketed to worldwide fame—and all everyone wanted for Christmas was Carey’s soulful song. Played in homes, malls, and stores all over the world, her holiday single is now inseparable from Christmas.
“It’s a really iconic song that everyone loves,” said Raveena Ananth (‘25).
The song has become beloved for its jubilant, hopeful tone that embodies the spirit of the holiday season. “The song lives in that moment of hope and the possibility of getting everything you want,” Jeffery Ingold wrote for BBC.
“It’s really catchy. I feel like it would be a good song for people who want to listen to romantic songs,” Vedantika Bose (‘25) said.
The song’s heartwarming appeal coupled with what Ingold calls “shrewd promotion” in his BBC article has kept Carey’s iconic song topping charts. Her marketing, such as the “it’s time” social media announcement she began in 2019 and promotional appearances, like in the 2003 rom-com “Love Actually,” have created additional publicity for the song.
“The ‘it’s time’ part is very iconic,” Ananth said.
Additionally, Carey has cleverly stayed up to date with changing music consumption, such as the rise of music streaming services like Spotify. With these strategies, she has effectively kept her song in people’s hearts and holidays for 30 years.
Longer enduring in tradition are a set of Christmas hallmarks such as “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” which have outlasted the songs of their time to become evergreen. At 30 years old, will Carey’s song retain its timeless status or become irrelevant in the future?
“This wouldn’t really be like a tradition, more like a nice Christmas song—trendy, catchy.” Snehal Agrawal (‘25) said, adding that it’s not a “true traditional song” like the carols she likes.
Ananth disagreed. “She made a life-long song, I don’t know if the generation below us, Gen-Alpha—I don’t think they’ll recognize how much of a big thing it is for us,” she added.
Bose said, “I don’t think future generations might have the same sentiment as we do to this song.”
Even within our generation, the song’s popularity seems to be waning. While Ananth said she listens to the song voluntarily, Bose and Agrawal agreed that they never really turn it on for themselves, only listening to it when hearing it around.
But Carey’s been playing the game for 30 years. Working the market with advertising and adapting to changing music consumption, she’s kept her monopoly over the Christmas music industry and has been an intrinsic part of Christmas for multiple decades; there’s nothing to say her marketing prowess won’t earn her relevance in the coming generations.
More importantly, the heartfelt nature of the song earns it its deserved seat among those other timeless, evergreen Christmas songs. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is a powerful expression of Christmas optimism and the hope of love, and that is what makes this song compelling and timeless.
