An Epimemeology Xmas, Part 1: "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

by Pat

We're back! And how I've missed you! My papers are graded and my wife is impregnated, so I finally have some time to sit down and write. We've got a week left in 2024, and you all deserve a bone thrown to you. Let's dive back in, shall we?

The Meme:

The 1994 single "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey. 

I bet you can hear this.

Specifically, the meme is about the song's omnipresence between November and January and the devastating effect this has on people. 

Where You Might Have Seen It:

"AIWfCIY" was released on October 29, 1994. Terrible initials, by the way. 

Also, the most popular girls name of 2025

The song was a minor hit at the end of 1994, peaking at #6 on Billboard's U.S. Adult Contemporary chart. For context, Mariah Carey had four other singles on the Year-End Hot 100 list at the same time. Music Box had sold 10 million copies in just the U.S. that year. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was not the most notable thing Mariah Carey put out in 1994 by a longshot. 

So how did this afterthought of a single come to be America's #1 signifier of winter, especially now that global warming has eliminated snow? The answer might surprise you! Or not! I don't know your life!

Most obviously, it's a Christmas song. We Americans fucking love Christmas music. Especially Christmas music we've heard before. There's a nostalgia element to it. Nothing gets us higher than being able to say "Oh man, this reminds me of when I was a kid." Americans are horny for the past. That's why the two most mainstream political movements in this country are based firmly on the idea of "Return us to the glorious status quo of [insert year here]." That's also why "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" is currently #2 on the Billboard Chart, even though that song was recorded in 1958 (when Brenda Lee was thirteen years old). What's #1? Do I even have to say it?

Only two of these songs have been released since the Moon landing

 

But lots of artists record Christmas songs. It's basically free money. Why did this particular song rise to the top? 

Do you recall a little movie called Love Actually? That ensemble Christmas movie full of love notes and dance numbers (and anonymous group sex) that everyone's girlfriend has made them watch at some point? If you don't, the climax of the film features most of the storylines joining together to watch a rendition of "All I Want for Christmas" at a school talent show with an unlimited budget.

In my opinion, this cover was not as memorable as the baffling Gymnast Child vs. Airport Security chase sequence. But it did cement the song's status as a Christmas standard. After a re-release on Carey's second Christmas album, Merry Christmas II You (and a change to Billboard's charting rules), "All I Want for Christmas Is You" reappeared on the Hot 100 list in 2012.

Two things have happened ever year since 2019. Mariah Carey has posted a video titled "It's Tiiiiiime" on November 1st, and "All I Want for Christmas" has hit #1. The song is unstoppable at this point. It's Mariah Carey's world, we're all just living in it. 

Mariah agrees wholeheartedly that this is Mariah's world

The Message:

She wants you for Christmas. Resistance is futile.

The Source:

Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas turns thirty this year. Timothée Chalamet, Megan Thee Stallion, and Patrick Mahomes have never lived in a world without it. But now, I endeavor to answer the question: how is it? Is it good? I can't believe I'm the first to ask. 

The original album clocks in at just under forty minutes and consists of ten songs: seven Christmas standards/covers, and three originals written by Carey and collaborator Walter Afanasieff. We start with "Silent Night" featuring Carey backed by a full chorus. It's a heavily gospel-influenced rendition, and it sounds pretty good. Maybe not an instant classic, but I can tell that Mariah Carey isn't just phoning this in. 

It's during the second track, "O Holy Night," that I start to see the weaknesses of the album. At about three minutes in, Carey hits an unbelievably high note while singing the word "divine." It's so impressive and jarring it actually knocked me out of immersion. Carey's vocals are kinda too much for a Christmas song. Christmas songs—by design—are not showstoppers. They strive for competence, not excellence. They're supposed to provide background noise while visiting your grandparents, not turn your head in awe. Imagine the alternative. Aunt Bonny was so touched by Mariah Carey's voice that she dropped the roast! Christmas is ruined!

Carey's choices on that track and others seem to be less about making the songs sound pleasant and more about Mariah Carey showing off. She can do things that other singers just can't. I don't blame her. If she's stuck singing a 150-year-old song like "O Holy Night," she might as well have fun with it. 

To put into words PoYB readers can understand: imagine if Steph Curry contractually had to play ten games at your local high school. He'd probably be more bored than anything. In very short order, he'd start draining threes from increasingly bizarre spots just to challenge himself. From full court. From the bleachers. Outside the gym, behind his back, while holding a mirror. This is the dynamic happening on Merry Christmas. Talent has outpaced what the circumstances demand. 

Suffice to say, the rest of the album never dips below "fine-to-good" quality, with occasional laterals over to "weird and wonderful." "Miss You Most" stands as the wistful, shadow version of "All I Want for Christmas," while "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" is an inoffensive, perfectly acceptable cover of a song written to distract children from the horrors of the Great Depression. 

"Crying and pouting does not make the bread line go faster, Timmy!"

Now let's cover the strangest stuff about Merry Christmas. For example, the club remix version of "Joy to the World." That 808 is bumping! I could grind to this track in case of emergency. And if I'm in the club on Christmas Day, you know it's the most dire kind of emergency. 

But that doesn't hold a candle to Mariah Carey riffing about Jesus for two straight minutes on "Jesus Oh What a Wonderful Child." Man, this lady loves Jesus. Those can't possibly be the standard lyrics, right? Do all gospel hymns end with musical improv? White people church is so boring. At least it's over by 10:00 AM. 

But Carey cranks up her love for the Lord even further on the original track "Jesus Born on this Day," the most Christian song on the album by a wide margin. It's so worshipful that it bounds out of "zealous church hymn" territory into "Soviet anthem" territory. This song scares the shit out of me. There's something about a full choir singing in unison “HE IS THE KING OF ALL NATIONS” that fills me with gnawing dread. I can definitely imagine hearing this song as I'm blindfolded and pushed out of a helicopter by a guy who thinks the Earth is only 6,000 years old. 

And I think that aggressive Christianity is the key to understanding Merry Christmas. If I had to guess, I'd say Merry Christmas was a compromise between Carey and her producers. Riding high from the unbelievable success of her first three albums, Carey probably wanted to showcase her deep-seated Christian faith in a full gospel album. Her producers—innately sensing that Mariah Carey left to her own devices would lead to disaster—probably asked her to stick to pop music. A Christmas album was splitting the difference: Mariah got to sing about Jesus while staying more or less in the mainstream. Everyone wins! 

So overall, it's a fine album, maybe even a little too passionate for a Christmas album. But before I go, there's one last thing I wanted to investigate. There are two music videos for "All I Want for Christmas," and I want to see if the difference between the two can give us any additional insight. 

The first one was made in 1994, and is styled to resemble Mariah Carey's home movies. She does regular Christmas activities, like visit Santa, play with her dogs, meet adorable rabbits...

"Awww!"

Pose with reindeer...

"Huhhh?"

Sled down a hill...

"Fuuuuck!"

And be divided through a kaleidoscope.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

This whole music video probably cost less than $40 to make. Contrast this with the "Make My Wish Come True Edition" video, released twenty-five years later in 2019. This video has a much higher production budget and a story. That story—as best I can tell—is about a young girl who sees a store mannequin that looks remarkably like Mariah Carey.

And is also named Mariah Carey.

That young girl is then transported to a Christmas-themed Purgatory, where Mariah Carey is both God and the Devil. 

The girl will never forget this most magical of Christmas nights.

"Her face. I see her face etched on the inside of my eyelids."

Clearly, Mariah Carey's understanding of Mariah Carey has changed dramatically over the last thirty years. Maybe this song has affected her more than anyone. 

Pictured: All Mariah Carey wants for Christmas.

Tomorrow: We celebrate Christmas Eve by looking at some real trash.