Mariah Carey is listing some of her favorite Christmas songs! The 50-year-old singer's 1994 track, "All I Want for Christmas Is You," is many of her fans' choice festive song, but, as she revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, Carey prefers the classics for her own playlist.
"I love Donny Hathaway's 'This Christmas.' I love Nat King Cole's 'The Christmas Song' ...Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas,'" she shared. "All of the classics. There are so many good ones."
In addition to individual songs, Carey also called out some of her favorite holiday soundtracks, of which she said there are "so many great" ones.
"The Elf soundtrack is great... The Jackson 5 Christmas Album... is so good," she said.
While Carey has an appreciation for other people's Christmas songs, the "Always Be My Baby" singer has learned to appreciate her own work as well, something that didn't come naturally for her.
"I'm not casual about it. I don't take it for granted," she said of the success of her 1994 Christmas classic, "All I Want for Christmas Is You," which she both wrote and performed. "It's taken me all these years to just listen to the song at Christmas and enjoy it as a listener."
"For so long I would put it on, it's part of my Christmas playlist, and pick it apart. All the other artists' songs would come on and I'd just be enjoying the Christmas spirit, and then I hear that and I'd go, 'Why did I keep that there? Why didn't I change that?'" she admitted.
Now that she enjoys the song's place on her Christmas playlist, one of her holiday rules stricter than ever.
"No one that's with me at Christmas is allowed to listen to anything but Christmas music until after New Year's," she said. "It's just a non-starter."
In addition to being the Queen of Christmas, Carey is a successful writer, having penned her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which became a bestseller following its September 2020 release. Now that the masses have read Carey's story, the singer is opening up about rumors that it's set to be turned into a movie or TV show.
"I really feel like it should. That was always my goal," she said. "But it was really important to write the book first 'cause there's so much and then to kind of pick and choose how we translate that."
Many have speculated that Lee Daniels would get on board for the project, something Carey would neither confirm nor deny.
"We love Lee. He's one of my dearest friends and he gets me in a way that most people don't," said Carey, who had a role in Daniels' 2009 film Precious. "But I'm not allowed to say yes, no, maybe so. Only Lee tells you little leaks about things."
As for who would take on the role of Mariah Carey, the singer admitted that it's still up in the air.
"I don't know. We're figuring out different takes on that," she said. "... They're going to have to have quite the range."
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