Mariah Carey and Wham! have opened the 2026 Christmas streaming season almost level in the United States. During November 1–7, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” registered nearly 9.99 million official on-demand streams, narrowly ahead of “Last Christmas” at nearly 9.98 million. Wham! then moved in front over November 8–9, while Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” took third place in the initial seven-day comparison.
Mariah Carey has the narrowest of early leads over Wham! in the United States’ annual Christmas streaming contest. Their signature holiday singles were separated by roughly 10,000 plays during November 1–7, with each drawing almost 10 million official on-demand streams. It is a small margin for recordings that return to heavy rotation after Halloween.
Luminate figures reported on November 11 put Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” at nearly 9.99 million US streams. “Last Christmas” followed with almost 9.98 million. These rounded totals do not establish the exact number of streams separating the songs.
A separate early look at November 8 and 9 points to a change in momentum. Wham! generated 3.1 million official on-demand streams across those two days, compared with 2.9 million for Carey’s recording. That is a roughly 7% advantage for the British duo over the short period, but it does not constitute a completed second weekly chart or establish a winner for the season.
The distinction between the reporting windows matters. One figure covers seven days, while the next covers only two. A reversal during the shorter period can signal renewed interest without revealing how an entire subsequent week will finish. Both sets of data also concern the United States alone, not listening activity across streaming services worldwide.
Brenda Lee was the third major contender in the opening seven-day snapshot. Her recording of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” attracted 7.38 million streams over November 1–7. That put it clearly behind the leading pair, though still at a substantial level for a song first recorded decades before streaming became the dominant way of listening to music.
Year-over-year movement helps explain why the early Wham! result is attracting attention. “Last Christmas” was up 17% compared with the corresponding week in 2025. Mariah Carey’s single, meanwhile, was down around 4%. Those percentages describe changes within one specific early-November period, not a projection for the rest of the holiday season or a measure of which song has the larger total audience.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” originally appeared in 1994 on Carey’s album Merry Christmas. Its annual resurgence became especially visible on the Billboard Hot 100, where it reached No. 1 for the first time in 2019, 25 years after release. The track has since returned to the upper reaches of the chart repeatedly, becoming a fixture of the period between early November and late December.
Mariah Carey has also developed an annual ritual around that return. On November 1, she shared another “It’s Time” video, marking the transition from Halloween to Christmas. This year’s version began with the singer in a rock-inspired performance before shifting into a festive scene as her familiar holiday recording took over. The promotional tradition and the streaming measurements are related seasonal events, but they measure different things.
“Last Christmas” has its own history. Released in 1984 by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley’s duo Wham!, it tells a story of romantic disappointment against a bright pop arrangement. Michael wrote the track, whose popularity has continued across generations. Its longevity has made it a consistent challenger to the American singer’s holiday favorite, even though the two singles were released a decade apart.
There is additional attention around Michael’s work in 2026. December will mark ten years since his death on Christmas Day 2016, and the concert documentary George Michael: The Faith Tour is scheduled for a theatrical release. Neither development can, on its own, be shown to have caused the 17% streaming increase; the available figures measure listening, not the individual motivations of listeners.
The Billboard Hot 100 dated November 14 shows Wham! re-entering at No. 37 and Mariah Carey returning at No. 39. This places the British duo slightly higher on that particular chart, even though Carey held the narrow lead in the earlier seven-day streaming figures. The distinction is unsurprising once the chart methodology is considered: Hot 100 rankings combine streaming, radio airplay and song sales rather than counting streams alone.
Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” offers another reminder that Christmas listening does not operate like the launch of a new single. Recorded in 1958, the song found renewed chart success many decades later. Its seasonal performance sits alongside two other recordings with long histories, all of which are able to return to substantial audiences without a conventional new-release campaign.
For Mariah Carey and Wham!, the change between the periods became visible almost immediately. During the full first week, the difference between Carey’s recording and the Wham! track was minimal. The following two days showed a clearer lead for “Last Christmas.” Whether that short-term shift becomes a sustained trend remains an open question until further complete reporting periods are available.
These figures should not be confused with global platform rankings, total lifetime streams or an official year-end Christmas chart. They represent US official on-demand listening reported by Luminate for specific dates. Other countries, airplay patterns and physical or digital song purchases can produce different results, while some weekly charts combine multiple consumption measures into a single ranking.
For now, Mariah Carey leads the November 1–7 streaming comparison, Wham! leads the separate November 8–9 update, and Brenda Lee follows the pair in the opening week’s totals. The next full set of US figures will show whether “Last Christmas” maintains that early acceleration as the 2026 holiday listening season develops.
