Mariah Carey to Texas bar that banned ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ until Dec. 1: ‘It’s time’

Can Christmas come too early? When it comes to a 1994 pop song played annually around the holiday season, the answer is yes – according to a bar in Texas.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You,” a well-known earworm by Mariah Carey, was banned in the Stoneleigh P bar in Dallas before Dec. 1.

A sign on its jukebox last week said the catchy tune “will be skipped” if played before then, and after that date it can be played – but only “one time a night.”

The bar did not immediately respond to the Washington Post’s request for comment, but the general manager told CNN she did not “hate Mariah Carey, and I don’t hate Christmas” – though the song gets played too frequently, jarring staff.

She added that the sign was intended to be lighthearted and had been put up in the bar for the past few years.

A picture of the sign, shared by a National Review reporter on Twitter, has sparked a social media debate, with the musician herself weighing in Monday.

Carey posted an image of herself dressed for battle in armor amid flames after someone on Twitter asked whether the jukebox sign signaled a war on Christmas.

Carey also later shared a video of herself clad in a sparkly red Christmas dress, using a giant candy cane baseball bat to smash Halloween pumpkin lanterns, exclaiming: “It’s time.”

Her fans shared their delight with her response on social media, dubbing her “the queen of Christmas” and teasing that she had been “defrosting” since October in preparation for her upcoming ubiquity.

One tweeted: “Imagine owning a whole holiday,” while others posted memes of Carey appearing to count piles of cash at the end of each year.

Others were more sympathetic with the bar, condoning its actions: “This is an acceptable practice for that song.” Another lamented: “I hate that song, I can’t stand it!”

The chorus on social media, however, does not appear to have affected the mainstream popularity of the tune, which on Tuesday had already entered Apple Music’s top 100 most-played songs in the United States. Last year, by Dec. 1, it was the second-most listened to song in America, according to Spotify.

In 2017, the “modern yuletide classic” entered the Billboard Hot 100’s top 10 for the first time, more than 20 years after its release, becoming one of the few Christmas songs to do so.

It has also been awarded a Guinness World Record for being the highest-charting holiday song on the Billboard U.S. Hot 100 by a solo artist and continues to delight and vex listeners across the globe.