Mariah Carey is adding to her merry Christmas tradition.
The music superstar, who has two best-selling Christmas albums, will direct her first film, Hallmark Channel's A Christmas Melody (Dec. 19, 8 p.m. ET/PT).
“I did it for the love of just doing it. It was a great experience” she'd like to do again, says Carey, who has directed music videos. “I hope people want to sit down and watch it with their families during the Christmas season.”
She also stars in the film, is scheduled to ride on the network's float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade Thursday and is publishing a children's book based on the lyrics of her holiday staple, All I Want for Christmas Is You.
“I love Christmas,” she says. “Christmas is a big time of year for me.”
Melody centers on divorced mother and fashion designer Kristin (Lacey Chabert) who returns to her Ohio hometown with her young daughter Emily (Fina Strazza), a budding songwriter who performs a Christmas song. Carey plays Kristin's unwelcoming rival Melissa, the PTA president.
Melissa is “a stage mom. She's over the top. I think she's funny,” says Carey, 45, who doesn't sing in the film but reworked her Oh Santa! for Strazza.
“I changed the lyrics so that it would fit for this 9-year-old girl and for the story line,” she says. “It's there to make people feel Christmas-y and as festive as possible.”
Melody is one of many original films featured during the annual Countdown to Christmas, a two-month extravaganza that has given Hallmark Channel the gift of bountiful ratings.
This week, for the first time, the network will present a new holiday film all five nights of Thanksgiving weekend, including A Christmas Detour (Saturday, 8 p.m. ET/PT), which stars Full House's Candace Cameron Bure. Fans of two pop-culture classics, Star Trek and Back to the Future, will get a kick out of Hallmark Hall of Fame's Just in Time for Christmas (Dec. 5, 8 p.m. ET/PT), which features William Shatner (Trek's Captain Kirk) and Christopher Lloyd (Future's Dr. Brown).
Fans hoping to hear Carey's famed voice can stick around for a Christmas special following Melody at 10 p.m. ET/PT Dec. 19. Carey will sing All I Want For Christmas Is You, and Babyface will perform.
Before then, she'll perform in her hometown in the Thanksgiving parade and more than a week of holiday concerts at New York's Beacon Theater. “I love New York at Christmastime,” Carey says.
Carey's 4-year-old twins, Monroe and Moroccan, like her new book, which is named for her famed Christmas song, she says.
In the book, the main character is a version of her, “a little girl. She wants a puppy,” Carey says. “My kids saw it on the table and they loved it. They can't read yet, but they love the pictures.”
As with many holiday traditions, revisiting the 1994 hit brought back good memories.
“When I wrote it, it was everything about what I love about Christmas,” she says. “It kind of brought me back to where I was when I first wrote the song. I really enjoyed that.”
