In this handout photo provided by Disney, Grammy Award-winning singer Mariah Carey waves to the crowd while taping the “Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade” TV special at the Magic Kingdom on December 3, 2010 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” is a holiday favorite.

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In this handout photo provided by Disney, Grammy Award-winning singer Mariah Carey waves to the crowd while taping the “Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade” TV special at the Magic Kingdom on December 3, 2010 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” is a holiday favorite.

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Whether you play it on loop or whether it drives you crazy, there’s no question Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” song has become a permanent fixture of the Christmas song canon.

But the holiday song canon is big, and a number of other pop artists have made their own Yuletide jingles since 1994 including John Legend, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.

But not even the woman who shattered records with her Eras tour has given us a holiday song that has had staying power worthy of The Canon.

For 30 years Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” has dominated the holiday music charts. NPR’s Stephen Thompson explains what makes it a lasting hit.

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Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Marc Rivers.

Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

Snow has been slow to arrive in Big Bear this year, but the long-term forecast calls for big changes.

Bear Mountain resort in Big Bear is adding its first new chair lift in 30 years, a six-seat, high-speed lift that will carry its first customers Thursday.

The new Midway lift (also known as Chair 5) holds up to six skiers at a time. Its features include a short conveyor belt that carries skiers and boarders to the spots where the lift will pick them up for a ride of about 2,500 feet.

“This is our bright, shiny, new toy for the season,” said Mark Burnett, the resort’s vice president for facilities, at a recent test run.

Though Bear Mountain opened chairlifts 7 and 9 for the season Dec. 13, management waited until later in the month before opening up the Midway lift, hoping for more snow that has yet to arrive. Skiers can get updates on Big Bear weather, trails and lifts here.

Meanwhile, Alterra Mountain Co., the company behind Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, Snow Valley and several of the largest winter resorts in the West, continues to inch forward on a bigger idea: linking Bear Mountain and Snow Summit with a pair of lifts and other amenities. This would allow skiers and boarders to move back and forth between resorts without driving or boarding a shuttle bus.

Under the plan — still under review by the U.S. Forest Service — the resorts would build a pair of “Big Bear Connect” lifts. To make the plan work, the two ski operations (together known as Big Bear Mountain Resort) would need to add about 300 acres to the nearly 1,500 acres they use now under permits from the Forest Service.

The Forest Service, which owns the land, began gathering public input on the proposed expansion plan in 2023.

“We are in the analysis phase,” U.S. Forest Service Mountain Resorts program manager Janelle Walker said, confirming that the project is still moving forward. She said “we had additional analysis that was needed, and we are planning to get the Draft Environmental Assessment out to the public in spring 2025.” Even after approval, resort officials noted, the project could take years to complete.

In the meantime, skiers and boarders have the new lift at Bear Mountain’s to try out.

How the new lift works

Bear Mountain officials said they’ve spent about $10.2 million on the new Midway lift, which replaces the now-departed chairlifts 1, 2 and 5 in the resort’s central base area.

Designed by the lift specialist company Leitner-Poma, it is expected to carry passengers 2,494 feet upslope in as little as 2.5 minutes. The lift will be able to carry as many as 3,200 people per hour, resort officials say.

“Now all we need is the snow,” said Burnett.

The construction, which began in May, included helicopters carrying a dozen towers to their new places on the slopes, while other workers dug a vast hole to hold the lift’s many moving and stationary parts at the base of the mountain.

Bear Mountain, known for its terrain parks and half-pipes, has operated under various names in the San Bernardino National Forest since the 1940s. For many years, the resort has relied heavily on artificial snow-making, attracting many beginner and intermediate skiers and snowboarders.

Burnett estimated that in the last eight years, management has invested $30 million in improvements to Bear Mountain, with further investment at Snow Summit and Snow Valley.

How Bear Mountain and Snow Summit could link together

Like many ski resorts, those in Big Bear include large chunks of U.S. Forest Service land, where resort companies operate under long-term special use permits, building improvements and sharing a portion of their income with the Forest Service.

Bear Mountain, whose permit covers 818 acres, runs seven chairlifts on 198 skiable acres.

Snow Summit, whose permit covers 656 acres, operates 10 chairlifts on 240 skiable acres.

The permits are good through 2057, resort officials said, and linking them would require another 300 acres of Forest Service land between the two. Within that area, the “footprint of disturbance” would be relatively small, Walker said — less than 100 acres.

The main way to travel between the resorts now is to drive or catch one of the free Intermountain Shuttle buses that depart every half-hour for the 10-minute journey between the resorts.

Though Bear Mountain and Snow Summit have been under common ownership since 2002, talk of linking them didn’t heat up until after they were bought up by Mammoth Mountain in 2014, then swallowed in 2017 (along with Mammoth) by the Denver-based company now known as Alterra Mountain Co.

Alterra, one of the biggest names in the ski industry, operates 19 resorts in the Western U.S. and Canada and uses its popular Ikon season passes to market them together.

The company’s proposed link between Bear Mountain and Snow Summit is part of a broader upgrade that is spelled out in a Big Bear Mountain Resort Master Development Plan, filed by resort officials with the Forest Service in 2020.

Besides adding the acreage and two lifts — which would average 4,250 feet in length — the plan would include construction of a Goldmine Mountain Lodge (including restaurant) on Bear Mountain; the creation of 60 acres of trails in and near the expansion area; clearing trees; and building a skier bridge so that skiers and boarders can cross above an existing mountain road, 2N10, that runs between Snow Summit and Bear Mountain.

Other elements of the proposal: addition of a zipline system; 12 new mountain biking trails; a “mountain coaster” attraction on land already covered by permits or owned by Alterra; and the addition of about 1,400 parking spaces. Resorts officials said the cost of these projects is yet to be determined, pending reviews and approvals.

To put the connection between resorts in simplest terms, Big Bear Mountain Resorts advertising and public relations director Justin Kanton said, “we’re talking about a narrow ravine with two lifts coming in and out.”

“And there’s already a road that goes in and out,” Burnett added.

In the month after the August 2023 release of Alterra’s proposed plans, more than 40 local residents weighed in with letters to the Forest Service and expressed a mix of caution and support.

Mitchell Chivetta warned that “the local infrastructure cannot handle the current influx of visitors during the winter.” Even when highway 330 and 38 are in good repair, Chivetta wrote, “the traffic on these roads caused by inexperienced winter drivers creates hardship for local residents and frustrates all drivers.”

Conversely, Justin Kohlas wrote that “we’re way overdue for an upgrade to the resorts and experience on the mountain. To be able to move from Bear Mountain to Snow Summit and vice versa without the need to wait in a shuttle line makes so much sense.”

“In some ways, stand-up comedy is like a documentary of your own life,” explains Mike Birbiglia in his recent special Good One: A Show About Jokes. By that measure, there were some really good – and funny – documentaries this year.

Hasan Minhaj shared hilarious conversations with his immigrant dad. Tom Papa enjoyed the freedom of being an empty nester. Fortune Feimster got huge laughs as she mimed a fight with her wife while stuck in a train’s quiet car, and Ali Wong detailed her sexual escapades as a newly divorced woman.

Here are some of our favorite stand-up specials from 2024: 

Ronny Chieng: Love to Hate It (Netflix)

Ronny Chieng: Love To Hate It

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In his new special, Ronny Chieng agrees with some of his MAGA friends that America’s not doing great right now. “Our kids’ math scores are down. Our children’s science scores are down,” he laments. Underlying Chieng’s jokes are some unflattering truths. When his MAGA friends tell him they would “die for their country,” Chieng’s reply is, “Why aren’t you willing to learn math, also for your country? … We’re losing the engineering jobs to Asia.”

He says he’s constantly trying to get his mom off social media. “Baby boomers don’t have the antibodies to deal with the Internet,” he exclaims, “They can’t remember a single password … but for some reason can make any piece of misinformation go viral.” Fortunately, Chieng is charming enough to make looking in the mirror funny.

Hasan Minhaj: Off With His Head (Netflix)

Hasan Minhaj: Off With His Head

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Hasan Minhaj says his “white, NPR tote bag friends” can’t understand why so many Mexicans voted Republican when President-elect Donald Trump once called them “rapists.”

“I’m like, ‘Chelsea,’” Minhaj instructs in his special, “‘Do you know what I would let a politician call me if I could pay 0% income tax?’”

Like Chieng, Minhaj isn’t just telling jokes, funny as they are. He’s commenting on bigger issues like generational trauma and cultural differences. “White people: you’re not even the best at racism,” he quips before talking about how some South Asians discriminate against each other.

As much as he teases others, Minhaj self-mocks plenty. “Insufferable,” he says of the time he corrected Ellen DeGeneres’ pronunciation of his name.

Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go  (Max)

Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go

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“Humanity is a toxic, abusive husband,” says Hannah Einbinder, pausing between almost every word, “And climate change is just planet Earth recognizing her worth and filing for a divorce.” She then proceeds to impersonate the earth, sun and moon, commenting on the state of affairs.

It takes years of practice to perfect a full hour of stand-up. Einbinder’s drawn out pacing in her first full-length special might be off-putting for some, but I found it refreshing.

Einbinder’s mood swings from seductive to cartoonish to professorial. She tells delightfully wicked stories about her teen years as a friendless stoner and a competitive cheerleader. She describes herself as “feral” when she’s on her period. To prove it, she drops to the ground on all fours, slinks around and hisses, doing what she calls “my Benedict Cumberbatch doing motion capture for The Hobbit.” That moment alone is worth the price of admission.

Mike Birbiglia in Good One: A Show About Jokes  (Peacock)

Mike Birbiglia in Good One: A Show About Jokes

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“Origin Stories,” “Workshopping” and “Finding Your Voice” are names of some of the chapters in Mike Birbiglia’s latest special. Equal parts autobiography and stand-up deep dive, we find out he was raised hearing his dad insist, “Don’t tell anyone” about personal stories. Birbiglia’s made a successful career doing exactly that. We learn about him getting bullied as a kid (“Running away works,” he jokes), his methodical approach to his sets (“So many different index cards,” marvels Seth Meyers) and watch how, with a little tweaking, a one-liner goes from just ok to a winner. True students of the art form soak up wisdom from their elders.

Early in his career, Birbiglia told a joke about Oprah when he opened for George Lopez. Afterward, he asked the veteran comedian for advice. Lopez told him, “You should make fun of yourself before you make fun of other people.” That is good advice for just about anyone.

Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall (premieres Dec. 31 on Netflix)

Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall

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Michelle Buteau is like the smart, fun, unfiltered friend who’s got your back. Her descriptions of the people in her life are hilariously specific, like her “sassy” five-year-old daughter: “Hazel has the energy of a 53-year-old Black woman that works at the DMV,” Buteau declares, “She walks up on the playground and she’s like, ‘Is this what y’all meant to do?’”

Buteau admits to feeling “rundown” as a working mother of twins, “like the door at the end of the movie Titanic. Just like less buoyant, and everyone’s climbing on. My whole family’s trying to take a seat and my whistle won’t work.”

Her stories of “vibing” with a lizard at a reptile sanctuary and being high on edibles at a Knicks game are comedy jewels. Buteau says she wants to make “millions of dollars” doing comedy that makes people feel “safe, seen, secure, heard and entertained” and asks the audience to let Dave Chappelle know he should do the same.

And before we go …

A few more notable 2024 moments in the world of stand-up: The documentary Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution explored the history of LGBTQ comedy, Jamie Foxx went back to his stand-up roots to talk about the stroke that landed him in the hospital, Kevin Hart took home his Mark Twain Prize, and Nikki Glaser crushed it at The Roast of Tom Brady.