 These Are Special Times became the best @-@ selling holiday album of 1998 in the US with a total of 2 @,@ 684 @,@ 000 copies sold . Dion 's album also sold more copies in its first year of release than any other holiday album by a female artist . On December 6 , 2005 , the album was certified five @-@ times Platinum by the RIAA for shipment of five million copies in the US . On November 16 , 2008 , it also became the first holiday album by a female artist to top the five million mark in Nielsen SoundScan history . These Are Special Times is also the highest selling Christmas album by an artist born outside the US . It is the fourth best @-@ selling Christmas album of the entire Nielsen SoundScan era with US sales of 5 @.@ 4 million copies . 
