Mariah Carey wants to be the “Queen of Christmas,” but she’s going to have to fight her way to the throne.
Citing the success of her 1994 smash hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” — which in 2019 made her the first artist to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in four different decades — Carey is seeking to trademark the term “Queen of Christmas,” CBS News reported.
Carey actually filed a petition to trademark the title last year, but the move only recently became public knowledge. Now, at least two prominent holiday singers are pushing back: Darlene Love, who performed her 1963 hit song “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” for three decades on “The David Letterman Show,” and Elizabeth Chan, who released an album last year titled “Queen of Christmas.”
“Is it true that Mariah Carey trademarked ‘Queen of Christmas’?” Love wrote, per Variety. “What does that mean, that I can’t use that title? David Letterman officially declared me the Queen of Christmas 29 years ago, a year before she released ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You,’ and at 81 years of age I’m NOT changing anything. I’ve been in the business for 52 years, have earned it and can still hit those notes! If Mariah has a problem call David or my lawyer!!”
Chan, a full-time holiday singer who The New Yorker profiled as the “Queen of Christmas” in 2018, has filed a formal objection to Carey’s petition, voicing how owning that title is an issue that would extend far beyond the music industry.
“Christmas has come way before any of us on earth, and hopefully will be around way after any of us on earth,” Chan said, according to Variety. “And I feel very strongly that no one person should hold onto anything around Christmas or monopolize it in the way that Mariah seeks to in perpetuity. That’s just not the right thing to do. Christmas is for everyone. It’s meant to be shared; it’s not meant to be owned.
“And it’s not just about the music business,” the singer continued. “She’s trying to trademark this in every imaginable way — clothing, liquor products, masks, dog collars — it’s all over the map. If you knit a ‘queen of Christmas’ sweater, you should be able to sell it on Etsy to somebody else so they can buy it for their grandma. It’s crazy — it would have that breadth of registration.”
In her petition, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Carey has argued that she is inseparable from the title “Queen of Christmas,” citing a 2021 Billboard article that dubbed her the “undisputed Queen of Christmas,” The Washington Post reported.
Earlier this year, songwriter Andy Stone sued Carey, stating that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was a copyright infringement on his own song of the same name, which came out a few years before Carey’s monster hit, according to The Washington Post. There have been no developments on the case since Stone filed the lawsuit in June.