For the third December in a row, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has reached #1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 singles chart. As Billboard reports, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” becomes the first song in Hot 100 history to have three distinct runs atop the chart — not just sliding in and out of the #1 spot a few times but dropping off the chart entirely only to return to the summit. Its appearance atop the ranking this week marks six weeks at #1 overall, extending Carey’s record for most weeks at #1 to 85 — a full 25 more than Rihanna, who ranks second on the list.

Despite instantly receiving heavy radio play, upon its release in 1994 on Carey’s Merry Christmas album, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” was not eligible for the Hot 100 due to a Billboard rule disallowing any songs not officially released as singles. The rules have since changed, and with the advent of streaming, Carey’s seasonal smash has become a perennial chart power. “All I Want For Christmas Is You” first cracked the top 10 in 2017 and finally made it all the way to #1 in 2019, becoming Carey’s 19th #1 single. She repeated the feat in 2020, and now it has happened again in 2021. It’s hard to imagine Carey not topping the chart every Christmas for the foreseeable future unless Billboard changes its rules and/or America adopts the UK’s cultural emphasis on scoring a Christmas #1.

Other Christmas songs in this week’s top 10 include Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” at #2, Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” at #4, Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” at #5, Andy Williams’ “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” at #7, and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” at #9. What do y’all think: Is it time to change the rules to keep these tracks from crowding out current pop music every December, or is it fun to see decades-old standards crashing into the top 10 at the end of every year?