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Mariah Carey and the Roots Adorably Sing ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ on ‘Fallon’

mariah carey the roots jimmy fallon all i want for christmas is you video

Who needs chestnuts and an open fire when something this heartwarming is available to stream over and over again until your clicker finger is reduced to a coal-like nub? Last night, backstage before taping Tuesday’s episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the show’s lovable host and the best house band on television (the Roots, duh) scraped together a bunch of toy instruments and went in on a cover of Mariah Carey’s awesome Christmas anthem, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Except that after Fallon delivered the opening line, Carey herself sat down on the piano bench next to him and (thankfully) took over singing duties. There were other surprises, too, like the totes adorbs four-child choir that pops up to add overdubs every so often, the chuckle that Carey lets out at the 3:08 mark, and the fact that ?uestlove is playing a wooden clacker with his afro pick. The song is already one of the few latter-day holiday jams that deserves to be in heavy rotation amongst the classics, and if this version doesn’t fill your soul stocking with all kinds of happy stuff then may your real stocking stay empty when Santa flies over. Just for kicks, here are the performance credits:

Jimmy Fallon – wood block, tambourine, bass drum, kazoo
Mariah Carey – vocals
?uestlove – wooden clacker w/ afro pick
Mark Kelley – Fisher Price xylophone
Kamal Gray – recorder
James Poyser – melodica
Captain Kirk Douglas – ukulele
Damon “Tuba Gooding Jr.” Bryson – kazoo
Frank Knuckles – bongos
Black Thought – sleigh bells