"So this is Christmas"

If I were a gambling man, which I’m not incidentally, I would lay good money on the fact that this years number one Christmas record will again come from the Simon Cowell, X-Factor school of music.

It wouldn’t be so much a gamble as a sound investment. However as the chance of said record reaching number one is a ‘dead cert’ then the odds would be pretty low and I would probably just get my money back with no interest.

I am not having another one of my monumental moans about X-Factor incidentally, I am just lamenting the disappearance of yet another British tradition of weeks of wonder culminating in everybody huddled around their transistor radios on the Sunday before Christmas to listen to the chart run down and to find who had made that hallowed spot that year.

When it’s already been set in stone by a 13 week promotional junket on national television and the press, it kind of loses its excitement.

I am in fact a big fan of Christmas music as well as Christmas itself and every year I hang on and fight the temptation to fling on a few Crimbo tracks before the end of November (this year I crashed and burned when feeling particularly stressed I stuck on a Christmas album by an American band called ‘Mercy Me’ about a week before December. Their rendition of ‘Rocking around the Christmas tree’ is second to none and it really cheers me up).

However, have you noticed that the majority of Christmas albums that are released every year are full of ‘Rat pack’ songs from the 50’s, with the 70’s as a stop gap and that is pretty much it (if you allow the timeless classic ‘A fairytale of New York, which came from the 80’s of course).

Is it that we have lost the vision for Christmas songs? That no matter how hard we sing ‘Let it snow, let snow’ it won’t. That the very mention of ‘A long time ago in Bethlehem’ will send councils across the nation into a state of sheer panic. That ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’ is but a fairy tale that we give to children and that most adults cynically no longer believe in. That ‘Last Christmas’ is likely to be as expensive as this one is turning out to be.

It is a sad fact that we do not seem to be producing the ‘Christmas Records’ that once we did (I know that I ought to mention the all time classic ‘A Millennium Prayer’ co written by our good friend and sparring partner Quick Sketch. However, as it is not strictly a Christmas record I will let that one slide…although it’s addition to any new Christmas compilation does help the Quick Sketch family eat during the dog days and long may it continue).

However, I refuse to give up on my favourite Christmas tunes no matter how cynical we become. The mere happening across a few notes of certain tunes can send me hammering back into the mists of time and memories of happier occasions.

‘So this is Christmas’ by John and Yoko never fails to transport me back to a school, disco in Hartcliffe school and the memory that all was well, and that these girl things, although not to be understood, were actually rather nice and that whenever I got close to one my heart rate would increase….strange that.

‘Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ takes me to a party at the Railway Club at Templemeads Station in Bristol, where myself and good friend Bassbin had weekend jobs when were kids (we sold newspapers and the like on the platform…..ah, heady days). I remember bobbing my backside off at the party….and believe you me, this boy don’t dance (normally)

And I am not ashamed to admit that listening to Country Christmas songs by John Denver will always put me immediately into a very good Christmas mood indeed. You see my father was, and is, a huge John Denver fan and so Christmas in our house was not only a happy affair but had that county festive stuff as it’s sound track.

As I type this my Itunes on my PC is playing yet another version of ‘White Christmas’. I mean, it’s been covered more times than a hospital bed during a Norvo virus outbreak, but hey, this is nice gentle version by some Celtic women and so I am feeling relaxed and festive.

Long may it reign.

I wonder for those that are reading this, what Christmas songs ring a certain note with you and would you be brave enough to share it.