Christmas music is big business — just ask Mariah Carey

The trees are lit up, the sleigh bells are ringing, but for some the true sign of Christmas is Mariah Carey singing.

Crafting the perfect holiday hit isn't easy — see above! — but artists from Cher to Alanis Morissette to boygenius have tried this year, following in the footsteps of Kelly Clarkson, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber.

As the streaming era continues to change our listening habits and redefine how artists are compensated, a catchy holiday song could mean a Christmas bonus.

"It's really easy to make holiday playlists or to listen to holiday playlists. So a lot of these songs end up getting tons and tons of listens through that very feature of streaming services," said Brian Fauteux, an associate professor of popular music and media studies at the University of Alberta.

"There's a lot more pressure on artists now to release more music more frequently or outside of that album cycle to release singles here and there," he said. "So to have something that fits within the holiday format or the holiday category, you can end up getting on a playlist [and] getting a lot of streams."

With the holiday music business worth an estimated $177 million US a year, more artists are releasing Christmas covers and original songs — some hoping to recreate the magic that turned Carey's 1994 pop song All I Want For Christmas Is You into an enduring holiday classic.

Juno-winning artist Alex Cuba recently released his holiday song Christmas Made For Love in Spanish, Portuguese and English. He didn't grow up celebrating Christmas, nor did he intend to write a Christmas song.

"But all the sudden the word navidad showed up in my mind, feeding the melody perfectly," he said, using the Spanish word for Christmas.

"And I'm like, 'Oh, wait a minute. This could be a Christmas song.' "

Because of streaming and the dense volume of music released each year, "these days it has become more and more important for musicians to find the right time to release music," Cuba explained.

"If you could use the marketing that already exists out there to your advantage then you have more chances that your song gets somewhere."

Carey builds anticipation for her song's resurgence each year with a social media campaign, while Canadian crooner Michael Bublé ushers in the season with a high-profile Christmas special. Others want the Christmas cultural stamp of approval: Barbie star Ryan Gosling and music supervisor Mark Ronson just released a festive version of the film's power ballad, I'm Just Ken.

More broadly, the shift to playlist-style listening means that a lot of people are choosing music based on mood — and God knows that blasting Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (Springsteen's version, of course) is one way of getting into the Christmas spirit.

Fauteux says there's a huge spike in holiday listenership right after Halloween.