For Retail Workers, Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ Is the Gift That Keeps On Grating

“Enough is enough,” says one deli worker about Ms. Carey’s holiday mega hit

By Joseph Pisani
Dec. 18, 2022
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Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is everywhere at Christmas. But some retail workers, trapped in stores, restaurants and bars with yuletide anthems blaring on a loop, would rather a silent night.

Ms. Carey at the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting.

James Devaney/FilmMagic/Getty

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At least three petitions on Change.org seek to sleigh Ms. Carey’s 1994 hit. One begs the Federal Communications Commission to ban it from radio and calls it “the bane of shoppers, retail workers and pedestrians.” A representative for the singer declined to comment.

Columbia Records

“Enough is enough,” says Christian Graham, 19, about the song, which plays incessantly at the Chicago deli where he works. When he hears Ms. Carey crooning, he turns on an industrial fan and stands under it. “It just overtakes whatever is playing over the radio.”

Kiyah Coleman, who works at an appliance store in London, seeks refuge in a stock room to avoid Ms. Carey’s hit. “As soon as I hear the intro, I say ‘Oh god,’ ” she says.

Ms. Carey at Madison Square Garden.

Kevin Mazur/Getty

One bar in Dallas, Texas forbids Ms. Carey’s song before December. The bar posted hastily written rules about when, and how often, customers can play the hit Christmas song.

Laura Garrison

The distaste for Christmas crooning doesn’t end with Mariah. A Reddit thread calls for “a moment of silence” for retail workers who have had it with merry gentlemen and turtle doves.

“One year the store I worked at had a playlist with 5 different versions of ‘Jingle Bells,’” one poster recalls. “I still wish harm upon whomever put that list together.”

Dallas retail employee Matt Martinez, 20, doesn’t mind Ms. Carey. It’s the squeaky-voiced cover songs that leave him frosty. Covers of “Mele Kalikimaka,” made famous by Bing Crosby, are “madness inducing,” he says. He endured three versions during a seven-hour shift recently.

Matt Martinez

Greig Larsen, who is 32 and lives in Tampa, worked in several mall stores before moving into the tech industry. He remembers one good day when the speakers broke. “Everyone else thought it was the weirdest thing ever. And I was just over there having a great time.”

Greg Larsen

Additional photos by Terence Patrick/CBS/Getty and Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty
Produced by Brian Patrick Byrne

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