Popstar Mariah Carey has shown her support for the Royal Navy after the crew of HMS Ocean recorded a special music video to her hit All I Want For Christmas Is You. To celebrate returning home for Christmas after seven months on operations, the sailors filmed a hilarious festive video message to their friends and family.
And the clip, which has gone viral on YouTube, has been picked up by Mariah herself, who tweeted her thanks to the crew. She wrote on her Twitter page: “This is the best thing I've ever seen, you guys just made my day! Happy Happy Christmas!!!”
The four-minute video features crew members miming lines from the Christmas song while in various different scenarios on board the assault ship. Servicemen and women sing from the decks, from their bunk beds, from the boiler room and the bathrooms in the tongue-in-cheek spoof. Festive touches are dotted throughout with ‘Happy Christmas’ messages and crew wearing trees, pudding and present cut-outs on their heads.
Some of the more shameless sailors indulge in a spot of cross-dressing, donning bikinis and a Union Flag dress while others simply stripped naked for the occasion. The comical clip was posted on YouTube on December 2 and has already been viewed nearly 40,000 times. But the video also has a serious message, as the tough “realities of deploying” are listed below the video.
During the 225 days on operations, 15 babies were born to fathers on the ship and five members of crew were granted leave to attend their own weddings. The caption also shares how servicemen and women have missed their children starting school and graduating, kid’s exams and family holidays. One sailor is also set to celebrate his son’s third birthday when the ship returns on December 9.
The ship was initially sent out for a seven-week planned deployment exercise but was diverted to Libya for further operations and has spent a total of 176 days at sea.