Or at least, that's what her social media post depicted - the latest in a long line of annual videos declaring that when Halloween is over, the festive season has begun. A season that Carey has not only made a career out of, but has become synonymous with.

"It's Christmas. People don't understand. It is the entire focus of my year," Carey told Yahoo Entertainment.

Her song All I Want For Christmas Is You, while a relatively modest hit to begin with, has been a staple since 1994. And for almost 30 years, it has been steadily growing in popularity.

It's hard to believe, knowing just how big it is now, but between 1994 and 1996, it only peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. In Australia, it got a little more love, reaching number two on the ARIA charts, but largely it wasn't this runaway hit that people almost collectively remember it as.

But it stuck around, until finally in 2019, it reached number one for the first time. And the accolade has become somewhat of a modern day tradition with it becoming Billboard's first song to reach number one four separate times last year. And this year, it backed it up with yet some more time in the top spot.

So how did All I Want For Christmas Is You become the song to beat every December? And who exactly is Carey singing to? To answer that, we have to head right back to Carey's childhood.

Read or watch any interview with Carey and you'll know that she refers to her inner child quite a bit - particularly when referencing her Christmas hit. When asked - and Carey has been asked a lot - what it was like writing All I Want For Christmas Is You she constantly refers back to her little girl self.

For as much as a 22-year-old Carey wrote All I Want For Christmas Is You at a time where she was dating Sony record label boss, and eventual first husband Tommy Mottola, the song itself is a fantasy. There is no "you" but rather an idea of what it would be like to have someone who embodies a love-filled Christmas.

"It was the first Christmas song that I had ever written and I just wanted it to be real to me - to my little girl self. What are the things that I want? What did I wish for?" Carey told Channel Nine's Today earlier this year.

In her 2020 biography, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the singer described her upbringing as a warzone. Fights between her father and brother were often, she said, and were not the only conflicts that happened within the family unit. Carey recalls more times where she had to protect herself from her older brother, than times where he protected her.

But it was one explosive fight, between her father and brother when she was not yet four, that Carey details in her book.

"A shouting match turned into a tornado of fists in what seemed like a matter of seconds. Banging through the room, knocking things over and leaving havoc in its wake," Carey writes.

"In that moment, the rage between my father and brother was so forceful that no one person could have stopped it. No one would have dared."

By the time she was a toddler, Carey said she had developed a sense to know when a fight had got to the stage where she needed to take cover. She knew this particular fight was going to be epic.

The thunder of fists and profanity drowned out the cops bursting in, which only made a young Carey more terrified. She had reason to be - it was Long Island in the 1970s where two black males were being violent so police didn't always mean help.

Carey recalls two types of Christmases as a child.

The first was with her mother, following her parents' divorce. The days leading up to December 25 were an "event" and her mother, a Julliard-trained opera singer, would fill their home with song.

"The mulled wine she made camouflaged the dankness of the house with a warm spicey aroma," Carey writes.

"I was well aware that we didn't have much money so I never really anticipated getting any extravagant presents or popular toys. I loved that we made an effort to get into the spirit to create an ambience of joy and jubilance. We tried to put all the trauma and drama that infected the rest of our lives on hold and just have a peaceful meal. Too much to ask? I think not. I was a child, craving a childhood in a house full of disappointment and pain."

Where the problem came was Christmas day itself. It was the one time of year she, her mother and her two older siblings would be under one roof. Instead of a joyous reunion, Carey said her siblings would come full of hurt and anger, that would eventually explode in a "torrent of verbal abuse".

But as the abuse flew in every direction, Carey would sit in the middle wishing she was somewhere safe. Somewhere that felt like Christmas. Somewhere like the Christmases spent at her uncles' (or guncles, as Carey affectionately calls them).

Burt and Myron were her favourite people. She revelled in the cleanliness and comfort their home brought.

"My guncles supported the showgirl in me. Whenever I wanted to put on my own little production, which was frequently, they would pay full attention to me," Carey wrote.

"They never tried to tame my over the top imagination. It was from my little girl spirit, in those early fantasies of family and friendship, that I wrote All I Want For Christmas Is You."

"Think of how it begins," Carey writes about the iconic Christmas song.

Those 13 notes have become iconic. They have this xylophone or glockenspiel sound to them - although reportedly were created on a computer - giving them a festive fairytale feel. Almost as if they could appear in a Frosty the Snowman cartoon, or indeed, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

"The delicate chimes are reminiscent of those little wooden toy pianos like the one Schroeder had on Peanuts," Carey writes.

"I actually did bang out most of the song on a cheap little Casio keyboard but it was the feeling I wanted the song to capture. There was a sweetness, a clarity and a purity to it. It didn't stem from Christian inspiration - although I've certainly sung and written from a soulful and spiritual perspective. Instead it came from a childlike space.

"When I wrote it as a 22-year-old, I wasn't that far away from being a child ... though I was accessing the private dream world of my childhood in the song, I wasn't in the happiest place when I wrote it. My life had changed so quickly, yet I still felt lost, wandering the wild borderlands between childhood and adulthood."

From these humble Casio beginnings - where, as the story goes, A Wonderful Life was playing in the background - the song was then taken to co-writer Walter Afanasieff, where together they created the song's retro sound, complete with jingle bells and a touch of '90s pop.

In a lot of ways, the song is also a matter of nostalgia. Not necessarily for Christmases past but for the songs of festive seasons past.

"I also wanted to deliver it like the greats that I grew up idolising - Nat King Cole and The Jackson Five - who had tremendous Christmas classics of their own," she writes.

"I wanted to sing it in a way that would capture joy for everyone and crystalise it forever. Yes, I was going for vintage Christmas happiness. I also believe that it was too late to give my brother and sister peace, and my mother her wonderful life. But I could possibly give her a Christmas classic instead."

As of this year, Carey is standing shoulder to shoulder with some of those Christmas classics that she idolised. In April, All I Want For Christmas Is You was inducted into the National Recording Registry - the American version of the Sounds of Australia list.

It is now one of the 625 titles that have been selected based on whether they should be preserved for future generations, and joins Bing Crosby's White Christmas and Nat King Cole's The Christmas Song, as well as non-festive songs such as Aretha Franklin's Respect.

This year also saw Carey accept the Chart Achievement Award at the Billboard Music Awards, at which she performed the song at an awards show for the first time.

"This award is particularly special to me because the song itself changed my entire life. When I first sat down to write All I Want For Christmas Is You, I could never have imagined standing here ... accepting this special award for it," she said.

"So I just want to say thank you to everyone who has allowed this song to be part of their holiday soundtrack each year. I'm so honoured to be receiving this award for this little song's chart achievement but the greatest achievement for me is being here with you and feeling the love that only music can generate." But this long-term success - or rather, rebranding as the ultimate Christmas song - was not just a matter of time. All I Want For Christmas Is You certainly had a little help.

Starting in 2014, Carey has performed a series of Christmas shows annually, throughout the US. This has continued ever since - apart from a two-year hiatus due to COVID - and this year in particular, social media feeds have been filled with fan videos of the tour, and in particular the iconic song.

And those two years when she couldn't perform on stage, she filmed two separate holiday specials to fill the gap.

Then there are the spin offs - a 2015 children's book, a 2017 animated film, a mini-documentary on Amazon, various renditions of the song Carey has re-recorded over the years, and the annual "defrosting" social media video that has given fans "permission" to starting playing the song. And not just permission to play it, but stream it on platforms such as Spotify, which is the largest influence over the charts.

And then there was the marketing that external forces created, including Love Actually and it's now iconic school concert rendition. All in all, the marketing - both planned and not - also gone a long way in cementing this idea that the festive season is not the festive season without Carey's song. And in part, earning Carey the title of Queen of Christmas. At least, colloquially. The singer actually lost a trademark petition of the title of Queen of Christmas last year.

The Economist reported in 2017 - before the song had reached number one - that the song has earned more than $US60 million ($AUD 88.3 million) in royalties, averaging at $US2.6 million ($AUS3.8 million) a year between 1994 and 2016. Going off that estimate, the total would be $US75.6 million ($111.3 million) heading into this festive season for royalties alone. That means that the concerts, books, films and holiday specials have all come with a tidy sum on top of the million-dollar pay cheques.

And streaming wise, the song has certainly hit a lot of ears. The music video has more than 775 million plays on YouTube, and it's even bigger on Spotify, with 1.69 billion plays. But how does All I Want For Christmas Is You compare to other modern Christmas favourites?

Looking at the other Christmas royal - King of Christmas, Michael Bublé. The singer is reportedly worth $US80 million ($AUD117.7 milllion), however because he does Christmas covers rather than originals - or more specifically songs which he has a writing credit for - his festive royalties pay cheque is not as large as you would think.

It's estimated that the Canadian singer's version of It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas brings in about $1 million a year. Where the money is for Bublé is things such as his Christmas Specials and performances, such as the international An Evening With Michael Bublé Tour in 2019 to 2022. That reportedly grossed $US46.9 million ($AUD69.1 million).

Meanwhile Wham!'s Last Christmas reportedly brings in and estimated $US1.5 million ($AUD2.2 million) in royalties per year. since its release in 1986 until 2022, it would have earned around $US54 million ($AUD 79.5 million).