You may know every word to the chart-topping tune, but there are many interesting facts that you should know about “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which became diamond certified by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in 2021 — the first holiday song in recorded music history to do so!

The song was even inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in April 2023.

Decades after its debut, the Christmas queen’s hit single continues to break records.

Mariah Carey. SONY MUSIC

Each holiday season, the song makes its annual sleigh ride up the Billboard Hot 100 chart, but in 2019, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reached No. 1 during its 25th anniversary year. In 2021, the holiday hit earned the No. 1 spot on Billboard‘s Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs retrospective.

Clearly, Carey’s carol is a seasonal staple beloved by many and a reflection of the singer’s love of the holiday. “Christmastime really is my favorite part of the year,” she told PEOPLE in 2021 while discussing her holiday “do’s and don’ts.”

The pop icon isn’t letting her record-breaking single stand alone in the Christmas genre. She also released “Fall in Love at Christmas,” her 2021 collaboration with Khalid and Kirk Franklin.

Her holiday happenings don’t stop there. Carey hosted a Christmas extravaganza with her 2021 holiday special, Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continue, which premiered on Apple TV+ on Dec. 3 that year. In 2022, she recorded a performance at Madison Square Garden for the CBS special Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to All, which featured guest appearances from Drew Barrymore and Billy Porter.

She’s also hitting the road in 2023, kicking off a 16-date, 14-city run of her Merry Christmas One and All! tour on Nov. 15.

LEGACY RECORDINGS

Now, let’s tune back into the catchy Christmas classic for some super fun facts about “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

The song broke three records in the Guinness World Records

Mariah Carey receives a Guinness World Record award for “All I Want for Christmas Is You” as her kids watch on stage. DENISE TRUSCELLO/GETTY IMAGES

The jingle jam saw an exciting year in 2019 when it earned three spots in the Guinness World Records. Carey’s hit holds records in the following categories: The highest-charting holiday (Christmas/New Year) song on the Billboard Hot 100 by a solo artist, the most streamed track on Spotify in 24 hours (female) and the most weeks in the U.K. singles Top 10 chart for a Christmas song.

The song was actually written pretty quickly

Mariah Carey. TERENCE PATRICK/CBS VIA GETTY

The Christmas classic was co-written alongside Carey’s then-writing partner, Walter Afanasieff. Though it has long been reported that the song only took 15 minutes to write, Carey later revealed to Parade that the time frame was a little bit longer than that.

She explained: “I started writing that on a little DX7 or Casio keyboard that was in this little room in the house that I lived in at the time in Upstate New York lifetimes ago. Just writing down everything that I thought about. All the things that reminded me of Christmas that made me feel festive that I wanted other people to feel.”

Although the song was written quite quickly, the recording process took longer.

“We did take some time doing the record because if you listen to all those background vocals and all that stuff, you can’t do it in five minutes,” Carey told the outlet. “It’s literally impossible unless you had three choirs.”

She didn’t want to do the song at first

THE CHILDREN’S PLACE

Before dropping “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Carey had only released two albums and thought it was too early in her recording career to put out Christmas music. In contrast to her belief that holiday music was something “people did later on,” she said during a Bobby Bones Show interview that due to her love of Christmas, she decided to give the song a shot.

Song co-writer Walter Afanasieff didn’t think the song would become the hit it is today

Mariah Carey. APPLE TV+

The singer doubted the song’s success at the time of its release because putting out Christmas music wasn’t as popular for pop artists to do compared to today. When Billboard asked Afanasieff in 2014 if he thought “All I Want for Christmas Is You” would be the album’s biggest hit, he said, “Nooo.”

He explained: “Twenty years ago, Christmas music and Christmas albums by artists weren’t the big deal that they are today. Back then, you didn’t have a lot of artists with Christmas albums; It wasn’t a known science at all back then, and there was nobody who did new, big Christmas songs.”

She decked the studio in Christmas decor during the recording session

Mariah Carey’s 2019 music video for “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. MARIAH CAREY/YOUTUBE

Since the song was recorded in August, Carey thought it only appropriate to give the studio a Christmas-y feel. In an effort to get into a holiday mindset and allow the festive feeling to come through in the song, she took action.

“The studio looked like Christmas,” producer Randy Jackson said in Amazon Music’s Mariah Carey Is Christmas: The Story of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” mini-documentary. “The temperature was cold. There were, like, ornaments, there were Christmas trees, there were Christmas candles.”

Her favorite lyric in the song is, “I won’t even wish for snow”

Mariah Carey and Moroccan. MARIAH CAREY/INSTAGRAM

“[It’s my favorite line] because I always wish for snow,” Carey said in Amazon Music’s mini-documentary. She added, “I always want it to be, like, a special, festive winter wonderland.”

Since Los Angeles isn’t necessarily the definition of a “winter wonderland,” Carey takes a special trip to Aspen, Colorado, each year to get her snowy fix.

The song was banned from playing at a bar

The song may be a festive fan favorite, but not for everyone! A local bar posted a sign banning the song, stating that it will be skipped if played before Dec. 1, and it’s only allowed to be played once a night after Dec. 1. The bar — that is most likely making the singer’s naughty list — issued the statement in October 2021.

Clapping back at a tweet that read, “Is this the war on Christmas I’ve heard about,” Carey posted an image from her Game of War video game campaign — looking ready to prepare for battle.

Mariah’s twins are in the music video remake

MARIAH CAREY/YOUTUBE

In honor of the 25th anniversary of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Carey released a new music video of the holiday classic — with little guest stars. Her twins, Moroccan and Monroe, made appearances in the production that she described as “kind of the opposite of the original video.”

The twins were 8 years old in the 2019 music video, and two years later, they made another cameo in Carey’s “Fall in Love at Christmas” visual.

No live instruments were used while recording

KEVIN WINTER/GETTY

Yes, you read that right! When you listen to the song, it sounds like there’s a live orchestra playing the iconic chords and melodies beneath Carey’s vocals, but according to Afanasieff, the song was never recorded with a band.

“We did other songs during the sessions with the band. But there was never a version [of “All I Want for Christmas Is You”] with a band,” he told Variety in 2019. “I think we might’ve tried it, and it just didn’t sound as good. It needed to be brighter, more fun and more of what I thought a Christmas song should be on the radio, so I kept all of my synth/sequencer parts, computer parts.”