Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas the neighborhood of Southside in Birmingham, Alabama, that his father Hugh Martin designed for his mother as a honeymoon cottage. Located at 1919 South 15th Avenue (just down the street from his birthplace at 1900 South 14th Avenue), the house became the home of Martin and his family in 1923. The song first appeared in a scene in "Meet Me in St. Louis", in which a family is distraught by the father's plans to move to New York City for a job promotion, leaving behind their beloved home in St. Louis, Missouri, just before the long-anticipated 1904 World's Fair begins.
Merry Christmas II You that the album ought to boost Carey's career. He was complimentary of its overall feel, writing that manages to capture the "same magic" as her previous Christmas album, "Merry Christmas", and that the original songs fit "snugly" with the Christmas classics. He finished his review with "There's enough sweet spirit here to keep the holidays merry, musical and bright." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic noted that the four new original compositions gave it "a lively modern feel," and highlighted "Oh Santa!" and "When Christmas Comes" as examples. He continued to write that although some covers, such as "Auld Lang Syne"