Before Carey’s tune registered, it had been a minute since a Christmas song had also been a big hit.

If you count Wham!1984’s sad “Last Christmas” is a holiday staple. If you prefer more spring in your reindeer’s steps, Jose Feliciano In 1970 he wished us “Feliz Navidad” for the first time.

John Lennon And Yoko Ono made a name for themselves culturally with “Happy Xmas (The War Is Over)” in 1971, but it wasn’t initially a big success in the USA. And it’s more melancholic than happy, with Carey himself calling it “pretty sad.”

Really not since then Brenda LeeThe 1958 smash “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (written by Johnny Marks) would have been such an optimistic addition to the canon that it also sold millions of records. And suffice it to say, the Carey magic hasn’t been replicated yet.

Atanasieff compared her song to “a cosmic event that happens once every five billion years.” billboard that “thousands of original Christmas songs have been written over the last 20 years…But for whatever reason” “All I Want For Christmas Is You” became easy The Song.”

And he added: “It was the last great song to enter the Christmas canon and then the door was slammed. It just closed.”

Why? she thought the song had lasted three decades: “I think it’s because I really, really love the holidays,” Carey said Night line in 2023. “It’s not fake.”