Mariah Carey is the undisputed Queen of Christmas, and her festive rituals are just as delightfully extra as you'd imagine. If you're hoping to create a December that comes close to rivalling the "All I Want For Christmas Is You" singer, you're going to need flights to Aspen, two Christmas trees, and a visit from Santa Claus on the 24th. Incredible. Here, Mariah tells Cosmopolitan UK how she spends Christmas.
1. Get in the zen Christmas zone
I will only allow a harmonious day in my house - you have to comply or you can get out. That's how you avoid the arguments. You're not invited if you're going to cause any drama. There are no fights on Christmas.
2. Book a flight to Aspen
Christmas officially starts on the 23rd with my extended family. We're not together, but Nick (Cannon, Mariah's ex-husband and father to her twins) will usually come by. And usually we're in Aspen. When I get off the plane, our drivers have All I Want For Christmas playing, we have hot cocoa and some butterscotch schnapps. Then we'll go through the woods on a two-horse open sleigh with blankets and real reindeer. It's freezing cold but it's beautiful and you're looking at the stars. It's an incredible moment I love every year.
3. Do some last-minute shopping!
While the kids go skiing and snowboarding, I usually go shopping because I never get a chance to shop during the year. At home, usually there'll be a stylist that does that, so I don't necessarily just get to walk around the shops, but at Christmas in that environment it's really nice. It's very glamorous in Aspen - but that's not why I go there. I go there for the activities that aren't paparazzi moments.
4. Invite Santa over for Christmas eve
This is the one time I will usually be in the kitchen. Often there's a sous chef, I'm not going to lie. I cook a couple of different things - secret family recipes from my dad. Then Santa comes and hangs out with us. We take pictures by the tree. Then I'll encourage everybody to sleep in a little bit later because I'm not an early riser.
5. Open presents on Christmas morning
Everybody waits for me to get it together. I put on something I feel is Christmassy, some kind of fun little pyjamas or a onesie, something cute, and have some eggnog while we're opening the presents. Sometimes I'll open my presents at night because I want to take care of everybody else first. All the kids care about is their iPads at the moment - they just want different apps and games. I told them this year if we're going to do that then I don't need to buy all these other presents you don't really care about, so we're going to figure out how Santa deals with that. For me, just the kids' love is all I really need. They make me things and I save everything. But that doesn't mean I don't want things bought from the shop. I love that, too.
6. Make sure you have two trees
We do a tree in the bedroom, then I do a big tree in the living room with decorations I've had for years and years. Gold lights with off-white light, angels wearing white, and butterflies. At the top, we either have a star or an angel. We also do another tree in the family room area and call that the Charlie Brown tree. It's a sad little tree we decorate with Polaroid pictures of ourselves and draw funny stuff on it. That one has the colourful lights that are old school. Me and the kids do the little tree downstairs together, but decorating the big tree is really hard - it's 19ft.
7. Cook up a storm
I work with the sous chef on the whole American traditional Christmas dinner - turkey, mashed potatoes, we'll do a cherry pie, apple pie. There's lots of vegetables and goodies, cranberry sauce and stuffing. Sometimes we may do sprouts. It's not like number one on my list of must-haves - I don't need them. It's not like stuffing - stuffing is a thing. Christmas Day should be whatever you feel like doing food-wise. To drink, we have hot cocoa and butterscotch schnapps.
8. Play party games and binge on festive films
We play Taboo every year. Now sometimes, just to get the kids involved in writing and stuff, we'll do Head's Up, which is pretty much like Taboo. I'm pretty competitive. I watch only Christmas movies and I listen to only Christmas music - that's the only thing that's allowed to happen in my house. I used to bring DVDs but now it's usually between Netflix and Amazon Prime - they have categories for Christmas movies. I love It's A Wonderful Life, Elf, Four Christmases and of course Love Actually - my song is in that, I had to approve it.
9. Make the ultimate holiday playlist
I really like listening to the classics - Nat King Cole, Judy Garland. I could do a Christmas playlist on Spotify, but I like it to be playing all day and all night so I have these iPods with a really extensive Christmas playlist that just plays the whole time. If I wake up and there's no Christmas music playing I get very annoyed and have to handle it.
(Cosmopolitan)
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