Mariah Carey has reclaimed her seasonal throne once again. After weeks of watching Taylor Swift dominate with The Fate of Ophelia, the undisputed Queen of Christmas storms back to No. 1 as “All I Want for Christmas Is You” returns atop the Billboard Hot 100. The holiday juggernaut jumps four spots to notch its record-tying 19th week at No. 1, matching the all-time benchmarks set by Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
Three decades after its 1994 release, Carey’s perennial classic continues to stretch the limits of chart longevity. It now leads the Hot 100 in a seventh holiday season, an achievement no other modern hit has even approached. What was once simply a festive album cut has become a global pop monument, reshaped and revived by the streaming era and an online culture that treats December as Mariah Carey season.
But Carey isn’t the only one rewriting holiday chart history this week.
Wham!’s “Last Christmas” rockets to a new No. 2 peak, nearly 41 years after its debut. The 1984 synth-pop staple, written, produced, and passionately performed by George Michael, surges on streaming and radio, giving the group its highest Hot 100 placement since 1985. For longtime fans, the achievement is bittersweet: Michael, who passed away in 2016, never lived to see the track finally receive the widespread American recognition it long deserved.