Mariah Carey Opens Christmas Day NFL Games
Mariah Carey brought a lot of holiday cheer when he kicked off the NFL’s Christmas Day games by playing his song of the season.
The Grammy winner, 55, opened both games — the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Pittsburgh Steelers at 1 p.m. ET and the Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans at 4:30 p.m. ET, which aired on Netflix — with a recording of “ All I Want Christmas Is You” on Wednesday, December 25. Carey stunned in a red sequin dress as she performed on the rooftop, flanked by by dancers dressed in Nutcracker costumes.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released 30 years ago as the lead single from Carey’s first holiday album, 1994. Merry Christmas. Three decades later, the song continues to set the charts on fire and has been certified 16 times platinum, making it the highest-certified single ever by a female artist.
In November, Carey revealed the origins of the song in an interview with ABC News.
“I was working on it by myself … on this little Casio keyboard and writing down words and thinking, ‘What do I think about Christmas? What do I love? What do I want? What am I dreaming about?’” he recalled. “And that’s how it started.”
When he made the track, Carey hoped it would become a holiday tradition.
“My goal was to make something timeless, so it didn’t sound like it was in the 1990s, which is when I wrote it,” he added.
Now, 30 years later, the song remains one of the most popular carols of the season, which Carey says is because she “really, really” loves Christmas. “It’s not fake,” he insisted.
Despite his true love of the holiday season, in a November interview with The New York Times Carey revealed that his 1994 Christmas album almost never happened.
“I felt like it was too early in my career,” he told the outlet.
Eventually, Carey’s love for the holidays paid off and she was finally recognized as the queen of Christmas.
This year, Carey topped off his season thanks to a 16th start. Merry Christmas One and All Tourwhich made various stops across the United States and Canada from November 15 to December 17. (His 2023 holiday tour only included a total of four shows in Toronto and New York City.)
“Last year we didn’t go all over the country,” he told ABC News. “So this year we are doing that.”
Carey hoped the tour would give his fans “the Christmas cheer” while allowing them to enjoy “being together.”
He continued to tease that new music is “just around the corner,” revealing that he recently “wrote new songs” and is spending time in the studio “working on something with the choir.”
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