It's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' Season Now, We Guess
As we celebrated Halloween last night, taking our kids trick-or-treating, rewatching Jennifer's Body for the hundredth time, and definitely not getting hammered while dressed as a sexy version of the weasel from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide on a Sunday night damn well knowing we have work in the morning, something quite profound occurred, shifting the fabric of our seasonal reality. At the stroke of midnight, our universe experienced a transformation, a change so subtle yet so intense it simultaneously sent shivers down the spines of every retail worker, bartender, and DJ alike. As the clock struck 12 on November 1, pop icon Mariah Carey triumphantly emerged from her diamond-encrusted lair, heralding the yearly event we either love to hate or hate to love – the start of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” season.
At roughly 12 a.m. on Monday morning (Sunday night?), Carey shared a video promoting the single (as if it needed any more promotion than being played on an essentially endless loop for 1/6 of the year) depicting her spectacularly closing out spooky season and ringing in her yearly golden hour. In the clip, Carey happens across a set of three jack o'lanterns that collectively read “It's Not Time." In what is an extremely fitting allegory for the unparalleled grip the song has proven to have on our collective consciousness, she proceeds to smash the hell out of the “not” pumpkin with a candy-cane-colored baseball bat, proving that whether we want it to be or not, it's time … for us to be annoyed (or perhaps delighted) by hearing that damn song over and over and over again.
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"It's time!!!" reads the last image in Carey's Oscar-worthy cinematic masterpiece video. "To smash that pumpkin and treat it as pie... cause we still gotta get through Thanksgiving!!!"
An annual tradition since the song first dropped in 1994 as a part of Carey's first holiday record, very creatively entitled Merry Christmas, "All I Want For Christmas Is You" has turned into a defining feature of modern yuletide celebrations. It's the first song to make it onto the Billboard Hot 100 over the span of four separate decades. It smashed Spotify's record for being the most-streamed song of all time … twice. Thanks to these accolades and more, the song has even nabbed three different Guinness World Records. It's everywhere, but I don't need to tell you that – merely existing as a person on this planet will make you more than aware of this phenomenon.
Despite this global obsession, it seems not everyone spends the months of October to January attempting to hit Carey's whistle tones. Last month, a post went viral on social media depicting a bar's strict rules surrounding when and how the song may be played – no more than once a night starting only on December 1. While this policy may be (a healthy variety of) music to service workers' ears, it seems not everyone agreed with these strict parameters. While some were relieved knowing that there was some sort of end in sight that is Mariah Carey in the winter months, others were upset that their favorite seasonal tradition was thwarted, with some even dubbing it a primary example of “the war on Christmas.
Amid this heated debate, Carey took it upon herself to singlehandedly go to bat (pun intended) for her single, depicting her as an active participant in the war against her song. Nice.
So folks, here's to November 1. Whether we're ready or not Winter – and “All I Want For Christmas Is You” – Is coming.
For more internet nonsense, follow Carly on Instagram @HuntressThompson_ on TikTok as @HuntressThompson_, and on Twitter @TennesAnyone.
