Gwen Stefani dreams of emulating Mariah Carey's Christmas success

Gwen Stefani hopes her new Christmas duet with boyfriend Blake Shelton can transform her into a festive icon like Mariah Carey.

The former No Doubt frontwoman, 48, is releasing an album of holiday tunes including cover versions of Last Christmas, White Christmas and Santa Baby.

The collection also includes original material, and Gwen has high hopes one song, a duet co-written by Blake called You Make It Feel Like Christmas, will emulate Mariah's 1994 hit All I Want for Christmas Is You in becoming a festive classic.

"As a songwriter, that's the ultimate dream," she tells the BBC. "The idea of having a song that repeats every year. I mean, every year Mariah Carey is like, 'Here I am again! I'm back! Even if I don't have a record out this year, I'm back at Christmas! That was the idea - I was going to get the basketball and try to score a basket."

Her country musician beau penned the upbeat song for her album while on tour, and sent it to her phone.

"He went to Nashville just to be a writer but he doesn't enjoy it, I guess. He just likes singing," she reveals. "But he just happened to be sitting around on the (tour) bus and started writing that song, You Make It Feel Like Christmas. He sent me a voice text and I was like, 'I was just thinking about your record and I don't know if this is any good'. And I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this sounds like a hit!'

"It's one thing to write a Christmas song that's mid-tempo or slow or emotional, but an uptempo, fun, joyful one? That's hard."

Gwen admits that by working on the album she's spent more than half the year thinking about Christmas, but is still looking forward to the big day.

She adds, "It's probably going to be my favorite Christmas I've ever had - and it's been going on since April!"

The musical couple are pulling out all the stops to promote their Christmas collaboration, and sung it on TV talent contest The Voice on Monday (04Dec17).

Gwen and Blake, 41, met while acting as judges on the show, and went public with their relationship in November 2015.