It’s official: The ‘Queen of Christmas’ has spoken (or sung); the holiday season has begun

With Halloween in the rearview mirror, Mariah Carey has declared the 2023 holiday season open with her annual Instagram post depicting the pop star “defrosting.”

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This year she steps out of a giant, shattered ice cube and starts belting out the first bars of her ubiquitous 1994 standard “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

Carey’s video opens with a group of ghoulish Halloween characters applying hot-air hair dryers to a big block of ice containing Carey who, at the stroke of midnight on Nov. 1, hits her ear-splitting, trademark whistle note to announce, “It’s tiiiiiiiime!”

The ice shatters, and the pumpkin-headed Halloween spirits flee as Carey, in a form-fitting Santa suit, dances out of the icy rubble to sing and lead a dance troupe featuring joyous revelers dressed in ugly Christmas sweaters, necklaces of colored lights, Santa hats and reindeer antlers.

Her twins, 12-year-olds Monroe and Moroccan, join the dance, according to Billboard wrote.”

Each year, as November approaches, Carey reminds her more impatient fans that it’s not time to hang up the Christmas decorations until Halloween is over and the last trick-or-treater retires for the night. But with the release of her Instagram video at one second past midnight on Nov. 1, it’s officially cool to bombard social media with Christmas memes, blow up the inflatable Santa and reindeer and crank up the jam on her nearly 30-year-old seasonal hit.

She tagged this year’s post #MariahSZN, in case you’d like to join the commentary. Hundreds of fans are already busy, one writing, “This is our tradition now!” and another suggesting that Nov. 1 be made a national holiday to honor Mariah’s annual announcement, according to HuffPost.

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