“How does it feel to now have 19 No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100?”

“I’m still in shock.”

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of her “Merry Christmas” album, on Tuesday night, Mariah Carey flipped the switch to light up the Empire State Building...

And on top of that, in honor of her 1994 smash single “All I want for Christmas is You” reaching No. 1 on the Hot 100, Billboard’s very own Editorial Director, Hannah Karp, and Senior Director of Charts, Gary Trust, both presented the Queen of Christmas with a special award.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You" finally earned the chart’s top spot 25 years after its initial release, so I had to know…

“It's 1994, you’re writing it, did you know you had a hit on your hands?”

“I was writing a Christmas song. It was from a different perspective than my usual song writing, and I never imagined, well, first of all, i couldn’t think that far into the future anyways, but I never could have imagined this moment with it. So, it’s just really nice to be part of people’s holiday traditions, you know what I mean?”

Before landing at No. 1, the song had previously broken into the top 10 in 2017 and rose as high as No. 3 in 2018.

“What do you think it is about that particular song that helped it stand the test of time?”

“As a writer and just conceptually, I felt like I wanted it to feel like a timeless record, that didn’t necessarily have to be of that moment. And I think that hopefully I guess we succeeded.”

"You absolutely succeeded!”

Each year, the Empire State Building partners with iHeartRadio to celebrate the season with an LED music-to light show, and this year the lights of the NYC landmark will correspond with the notes of Mariah’s holiday hit starting December 19th through Christmas Day!

For more info on how you can check it out, head to Billboard.com. For Billboard News, it’s your girl Jordyn Rolling.