“I don't do years,” Mariah Carey likes to say. “Instead I live Christmastime to Christmastime.” Who can argue with her? The icon (five Grammys, 19 No. 1 hits and more than 200 million records sold gets you that title) has long loved the holiday, which brought her solace during her troubled childhood, she wrote in her 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
She's remained festive as an adult, and this year the Carey household is extra festive. Twenty-seven years after “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” she's back with another holiday single, “Fall in Love at Christmas.” She also has a new Apple TV+ Christmas special, which costars a Dolce & Gabbana dress she says weighed 60 lbs. (and required the help of “six burly men” to carry). And she might have a few more holiday surprises for her fans. Carey, 52, sat down with People to, as she put it, “spread some holiday cheer, darling.”
Now that your children Moroccan and Monroe are 10, are your traditions changing?
They never change, baby. They stay the same. People can either get on board, or they can do their own thing. I just want to make them happy. I want to see them open their gifts every year. And the kids are growing with me, because most of these traditions I kind of do for myself.
What childhood traditions do you carry on today?
Coming from not really having money, the dysfunction, et cetera, I think that my mother was very festive in terms of holidays. I have to say that whatever disagreements she and I have ever had, I definitely got that [holiday spirit] from her. She would be making some sort of Norwegian mulled wine, and her eccentric friends would sing Christmas carols. And she was into it. My dad was very much the strict disciplinarian, the engineer. I remember when I went to his house one Christmas, I was like, “Why doesn't he have a tree?” It's not for everybody, you know?
Well, for those for whom it is a thing, let's get Mariah's tips for a perfect holiday party.
Bleak people cannot come. We need decorations — all sparkly Christmas beautifulness. And a Christmas music playlist. You might throw a few of my songs in there, should you feel so inclined. And movies: It's a Wonderful Life, Elf. You can even put movies on several screens. I go a bit over the top with that. And drinks. I have my new liqueur, Black Irish. And food. Let's call them morsels.
So what's on your Christmas list this year?
Listen, if someone wants to give me a Harry Winston necklace, I'm not throwing it out the window, okay? But I'm not really expecting that. I just wanna enjoy the holidays. I want to look halfway decent — presentable, you know — show up, make a moment, go in the snow. Do all the things I love. But there's not one materialistic thing that I'm focused on. And that's the honest truth.
