Mariah Carey Almost Passed On Her Legendary Christmas Song

Every holiday season, Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” takes its annual sleigh ride up the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In 2019, the song reached No. 1 for the first time, marking a milestone during its 25th anniversary year. Two years later, it claimed the top spot on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs retrospective. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of her “Merry Christmas” album and the iconic track, Mariah Carey embarked on a 20-city “Christmas Time” tour in November 2024, set to conclude in Brooklyn, N.Y., on December 17.

With Mariah Carey’s song reaching a significant milestone, fans are reflecting on its origins and the story behind its creation.

Before releasing “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey had only two albums under her belt and felt it was too early in her career to venture into holiday music. She believed that Christmas songs were something artists typically tackled later on.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she admitted, “I didn’t feel, from a strategic point of view, that it was time to do something like that. As much as I love Christmas, I thought that the record company was off. Obviously, I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

But that’s not all, because the song’s co-writer Walter Afanasieff admitted that he didn’t think the song would become the hit it is today. In a 2014 interview with Billboard, Walter Afanasieff, the song’s co-writer and producer, echoed this sentiment. When asked if he believed “All I Want for Christmas Is You” would become the album’s standout hit, his response was a definitive, “Nooo.”

“Twenty years ago, Christmas music and Christmas albums by artists weren’t the big deal that they are today,” he explained. “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.”

The holiday queen previously revealed that her favorite lyric from “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is, “I won’t even wish for snow.”

“[It’s my favorite line] because I always wish for snow,” Carey said in Amazon Music’s “Mariah Carey Is Christmas,” per PEOPLE Magazine. She added, “I always want it to be, like, a special, festive winter wonderland.”

The notice declared the song would be skipped if requested before December 1 and limited to just one play per night after that date. The bar’s cheeky policy quickly went viral on Twitter, the social media platform now known as X, and the singer herself even responded with a sharp comeback.

“Is this the war on Christmas I’ve heard about,” one user reacted in a now-deleted tweet, to which Carey responded with an image from her “Game of War” video game campaign.

First released in 1994, the iconic holiday anthem initially climbed to number six on the Billboard charts and reached number two in both the UK and Japan. Over the years, however, the rise of streaming platforms has propelled the song to unprecedented heights, cementing its status as one of the best-selling digital singles of all time.

“I was working on it by myself … on this little Casio keyboard and writing down words and thinking about, ‘What do I think of at Christmas? What do I love? What do I want? What do I dream of?'” Carey said, per ABC, as she celebrated the song’s 30th anniversary. “And that’s what started it.”

Selling an impressive 16 million copies worldwide, the song has topped charts in over 30 countries during the holiday season, securing its status as a timeless Christmas classic. From office playlists to mall soundtracks and festive parties, it has become a global holiday staple, spreading cheer and joy year after year.

“My goal was to do something timeless, so it didn’t feel like the ’90s, which is when I wrote it,” she added.