In an interview with The New York Times, Mariah Carey opened up about nearly missing out on becoming the Queen of Christmas 30 years ago.

Carey, 55, earned an incredible $60 million in royalties when the song was first released, Forbes reported, and she now rakes in an estimated $2.5 million to $3 million annually for the hit, which is featured on Merry Christmas, her fourth studio album.

Dubbed by some as the "most successful Christmas song of all time," Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You has remained in the charts for the last 30 years, but what are the secrets to its long-lasting success?

Ms. Carey released her hit single “All I Want for Christmas is You” in 1994 and it reliably tops the charts. Although she lost her bid to trademark the title “Queen of Christmas” in 2022, she frequently holds holiday concerts, and this year, she put on a Christmas-time tour, which ended this week at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Billboard looked at every Christmas track released in the past 25 years, “ranked by total consumption (streams and sales),” and found the most popular to be “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande, from 2014. It’s hard to say whether the track would be more or less canonical if Grande’s label agreed to her original diea for the music video.

Mariah Carey is making the most of her favorite time of the year. The Queen of Christmas stepped out in style while celebrating Christmas with her inner circle in Aspen, Colorado, after touring across the country and bringing the holiday spirit to her fans.

Mariah Carey has insisted she never predicted All I Want for Christmas Is You would be a hit. Co-written and produced by Mariah and Walter Afanasieff, the track was originally included on her 1994 holiday album,

Here's why "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which reemerges on the charts each holiday season, is on track to become the most successful song ever released.