It’s not Christmas until you hear “All I Want for Christmas Is You” but you may be surprised that Mariah Carey is not the “Queen of Christmas” — at least legally she’s not.
That distinction now goes to Elizabeth Chan, People magazine reported — and according to The Washington Post — and anyone else who wants to dub themselves with the title.
Carey had filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, under her company Lotion LLC, in March 2021, to legally market herself as the “Queen of Christmas,” BBC News reported.
The legal move was made public this past July.
That’s when Chan claimed she too is known as the “Queen of Christmas” and her attorney filed a formal declaration of opposition against Carey’s application.
This week, the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled that Carey cannot own the exclusive rights to “Queen of Christmas,” “Princess Christmas” or “QOC.”
The move came after Carey’s legal team attempted to extend the court proceedings but did not file a counter to Chan’s argument, so the trademark application lapsed, the Post reported.
Chan responded to the ruling in a statement, writing, “Christmas is a season of giving, not the season of taking, and it is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like Queen of Christmas for the purposes of abject materialism.”
CBS News reported that Chan is “the world’s only full-time Christmas music recording artist.”
Her page on AllMusic.com lists her genre as holiday along with pop/rock, but all her songs are holiday related.
Chan has released 12 Christmas albums, including her latest, “12 Months of Christmas,” People magazine reported.
She was called “Queen of Christmas” by The New Yorker in 2018, BBC News reported.
Several other artists could also be considered the “Queen of Christmas,” or even “Kings of Christmas,” according to the Post, including:
- Brenda Lee.
- Darlene Love.
- Alicia Keys.
- Nat King Cole.
- Frank Sinatra.
- Elvis Presley.
- Michael Bublé.
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