Move over Halloween. It’s officially holiday season. At midnight on Friday, Christmas Queen Mariah Carey announced the beginning of the holiday season with a spooky tribute to The Addams Family.
The Addams Family-inspired announcement
According to People, the 55-year-old shared her annual “It’s Time” video on Instagram after Halloween to ring in the holiday. In it, Carey, dressed as Morticia Addams, dances with a man dressed as Gomez Addams in a moody castle. They briefly dance before Carey pushes him off her and throws a knife at him (she narrowly misses him, hitting a painting instead). Closet doors fly open and a Santa-inspired outfit appears, as does a countdown. The castle becomes a winter wonderland and Gomez turns into a snowman, Carey, now in the Santa fit, sings her signature slogan, “It’s Time,” and the words flash on the screen above the castle while the singer winks and blows a kiss to the camera.
“IT’S TIME!!!! ⏱️🎉🎄,” Carey captioned the Kay Jewelers-sponsored clip.
Last year’s viral “It’s Time” video opened with the date and time changing from Oct. 31 at 11:59 p.m. to Nov. 1 at 12:00 a.m., as vault doors swing up and show Carey in a Santa-inspired jumpsuit and frozen in a block of ice. Halloween characters, like a pumpkin headed-figure and a person in a Scream mask, then chip away at the ice. Carey’s soprano “It’s Time” eventually breaks the ice.
Carey has been announcing the holiday season with her “It’s time” videos since 2019, sharing them on or around midnight every Nov. 1. Each video is more grandiose than the previous.
“It wasn’t even really like an announcement,” Carey told The New York Times. “People would say, ‘Hey, when is it OK to put our lights up and put our tree up?’ and ‘When do you do it?’ People would just ask me that because I guess they thought I was very Christmassy.”
Now, she added, “I love ‘It’s time.’ It’s so fun.”
Carey’s Christmas legacy
It’s been three decades since Carey released “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which since its debut has become one of the longest-charting singles in any genre, spending 65 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100, the Times reported. A powerhouse single from Carey’s album Merry Christmas, which sold 18 million copies and became a holiday calling card, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has transformed Christmas music.
“It’s really rewarding, and I’m just grateful and thankful for it and for all the people that come up and say, ‘I love your music,’ or, ‘I listen to your Christmas music in July’ — that started to become a thing,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to do this for my life, and so now we get to do it.”
This November, Carey is set to go on a another holiday tour that’ll see Carey perform mostly her holiday work, as well as some of her other beloved songs, like “Fantasy” and “We Belong Together.”
