Why DEE SNIDER Still Calls CELINE DION 'Saint CELINE'

During a recent appearance on AXS TV's "Power Hour", Dee Snider once again recalled how Celine Dion ended up covering a Christmas song composed by the TWISTED SISTER frontman as a private gift for his wife.

Dion reportedly heard "God Bless Us Everyone" from producer Ric Wake, who was one of the original engineers on Snider's demo version of the song, and wanted to record it for her first Christmas album, 1998's "These Are Special Times". Snider gave his blessing, but he asked that nobody reveal his identity, because he feared Dion would change her mind if she discovered the man behind the tune was a controversial rocker. The song, retitled "The Magic Of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)", went on to sell 14 million copies worldwide. The album credit reads D. Snider. The next year, Dion and Rosie O'Donnell redid the song as a duet on Rosie's Christmas album and opened O'Donnell's Christmas special on ABC with it.

Dee told "Power Hour" (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Saint Celine. Please, let's show a degree of reverence. This wonderful house on the Caribbean, in Belize, that you see behind me is because of Celine Dion.

"My wife, in the early '90s, asked me to write her a Christmas song," he explained. "I told her she was insane. And in the mid-'90s, I get a call [from Wake], 'Are you sitting down? Celine Dion wants to record your wife's Christmas song.' So my first response was, 'Does she know who wrote it?' And he said, 'We haven't told her yet.' I said, 'Do not tell her Satan wrote her Christmas song.'

"It's called 'The Magic Of Christmas Day (God Bless Us Everyone)'," Snider added. "And it's the biggest-selling holiday record in history, 'These Are Special Times'. 14 million copies sold. So this is why we call her Saint Celine."

Snider later included the track in his stage production "Dee Snider's Rock & Roll Christmas Tale".

In November 2020, Snider teamed up with HALESTORM's Lzzy Hale to record a new version of "The Magic Of Christmas Day".

Years after Snider saw Dion and O'Donnell performing the song on O'Donnell's Christmas special, he told The Washington Post: "I'm sitting at home watching it, my wife's crying, and I'm thinking 'This is just too much.' At the end, the camera pulls away and they're broadcasting into Times Square with Rosie and Celine and the children's choir holding candles, singing 'God Bless Us Everyone … ' I just wanted to pop out from behind the curtain: It's me! It's me! Merry Christmas!"

Dee said that Celine has since discovered the identity of the man behind her Christmas song, adding, "I heard that she found out years later and was very confused."