How did All I Want for Christmas is You become the definitive Christmas tune?

We’re now into December, Christmas trees have been put up, the weather is warming up and carols are beginning to be sung.

While all of these things are to be expected towards the middle of the final month of the year, one tradition has taken over the zeitgeist more than any other in the past decade or two.

Close your eyes and imagine the sounds of bells. It is then that you realise you have about five seconds to figure out what device is playing the intro to the dreaded Christmas tune.

“Iiiiiiii don’t want a lot for Christmas” is spoken gently, yet penetrates your brain like a sudden migraine.

“There is just one thing I need.” It’s too late, the dreaded spell has begun.

“I don’t care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree, I just want you for my own. More than you could ever know.”

It is at this point you have one of two options:

1. Accept there is no escaping Ms Carey’s insanely catchy Christmas jingle and sing along, or
2. Plug your ears and run far, far away.

“Make my wish come true, All I want for Christmas is you!” It is done. The ritual can’t be interrupted and now you and everyone else within earshot have to bear witness to the hellish jingle that has cursed the airwaves for the past 30 years.

In all seriousness, as a former retail worker, there is no other song that grinds my gears quite as much as the self-proclaimed ”Queen of Christmas” tune about abduction, or whatever she’s singing about. While it is a difficult listen, it does beg the question: How the hell did it get so popular?

Well, thankfully for you, I had a slow Monday morning and was able to conduct some research.

Released as the lead single from the album ”Merry Christmas” on 29 October, 1994, All I Want for Christmas was written by Carey and musical producer Walter Afanasieff.

The song was a moderate hit in the mid-’90s, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1995 and again in January 1996. While popular, it was never quite the earworm it is today. At the time, it was considered just a casual Christmassy tune, no different from Michael Bublé singing Jingle Bells for the 50th time.

The song dropped to 83 on the December/January charts in 2000 and for the next 12 years, there was peace on earth.

How and when did it shoot back into pop culture? We’re in 2024, and the song is still playing consistently to this day!

Well, the dreaded trend began in 2012 and Billboard is to blame. In 2012, the popular music charts revisited how their rankings were conducted and allowed songs over a certain age to rejoin the tables.

As you may know, radio shows and TV programs rely on the Billboard charts to gather what’s popular and replay those particular songs to bring in listeners. So in the 12 years during which the song wasn’t on the charts, it didn’t get much airplay.

Jump to 22 December, 2012, when the song hit No. 29, proving that while not the mega-hit it is today, it clearly had some staying power.

For the next five or so years, the song re-entered the charts, falling between N0. 35 in 2014 and No. 11 in 2015.

While this is impressive for a 20-year-old song, it was 2017 that marked the beginning of the end for the sanity of retail workers everywhere.

For the first time since January 1996, the song re-entered the top 10, landing at No. 9. Despite being extremely popular, it wasn’t until 2019 that the song finally hit No. 1, thanks in part to Ms Carey’s huge following on social media.

On 1 November, 2019, Ms Carey dived into the cheesy nature of the song and posted a “coming out of hibernation” update on Intrage, stating one simple phrase: ‘It’s time!”

What she didn’t know is that she unleashed Pandora’s box, catapulting her song to the top of the charts, where it has stayed every December for the past five years.

The song’s popularity has also resulted in her receiving more than $100 million in royalties.

Not everyone is a fan, as clearly seen by the tongue-in-cheek yet oddly fascinated nature of the journo writing this article. American customer feedback company HappyOrNot put forth a sheet for staff of retail companies such as Walmart, Target and Kmart in 2022, where the song was voted the ”most annoying” by more than 65 per cent of retail workers in the country.

More than five petitions with 20,000-plus signatures have appeared on Change.org since 2019 as well.

At the time of writing, All I Want for Christmas is You has 1.97 billion streams on Spotify, making it the biggest Christmas carol/song of all time and the 132 most listened-to song in history. It has also averaged more than 8 million streams a day over the past week (to 9 December) and is projected to crack the top 100 by the end of December.

In summary, good luck to all retail workers and everyone else cursed to listen to this overplayed cash grab of a tune. I salute you and we will get through this difficult time together.

Merry Christmas to everyone except you, Mariah!