Well, it’s finally here. The big day is upon us, and I hope Santa brought you everything you wished for. If you have been with this series for the previous eight episodes I am grateful to you, and if this is your first you are also very welcome. I wanted to give you a bumper edition for Christmas Day, and that is what this will be: seven songs and a final favourite ad. This is actually a very similar set to the one I played last year, but as a whole 366 days have since gone by I’m counting on you not remembering that!

I’m starting where I usually do on Christmas Day, with one of my favourite singer-songwriters, making her first appearance this year:

Apologies for the audio-only version, but that was only ever an album track, as you can see, so no video has been made for it. On A Quiet Christmas Morn is wonderful, though, and is one of those that I never tire of hearing. If you’ve been here before you will know that I am a big fan of Mary Chapin Carpenter, and her lovely warm, welcoming voice is so suited to songs like this. This isn’t actually one of her own songs – it was written by Robin and Linda Williams, a husband and wife folk music duo from Virginia. Not THAT Robin Williams, though! The album Come Darkness, Come Light was released in late September 2008, and reached #155 on the US albums chart, #30 in the Country chart, and #7 on the Holiday albums list. The late John Jennings, MCC’s long time collaborator and producer, is credited with the harmony vocals you can hear. This song, above all, is the one that really speaks to me today.

My next tune for today is another that I played last year, lulling you into a sense of warmth and wellbeing:

In The Quiet Of Christmas Morning was a track on the Moody Blues’ album December, released in October 2003. It is a Christmas-themed album and was the band’s final record – and the first since their 1965 debut to include any songs not written by them. This one is a John Lodge/Justin Hayward song, with a tune you may well recognise: Bach’s Jesu Joy Of Man’s Desiring. The album didn’t make the charts, but I still think this is a lovely song, and the animation goes very well with it.

I’ve played this next one a couple of times before, and last year was the first time I had included it on Christmas Day. It seemed to go well, so I’m playing it again today:

That was the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) with Christmas Canon. As their name so obviously suggests, they are a prog-rock outfit from the US. I think that is absolutely beautiful: it is to the tune of the well-known Canon In D Major by Johann Pachelbel, which I’ve always found to be a lovely piece of music – my Mum used to play it on the piano when we were kids, and it holds a lot of memories for me. TSO’s recording was originally on their 1998 album The Christmas Attic, which was certified as 2x Platinum in 2019, and this song has been released several times as a single: as of 2016 it stood at over 900,000 digital sales. TSO have also recorded a rock version of the tune called Christmas Canon Rock, (of course). The gentle treatment they gave it is nice, with understated guitars, but I prefer this version. If you’re interested, the rock version is easily found on YouTube: this is the link.

Now for a bit of fun. You might need to turn the sound up a bit, as this seems quiet to me but I can’t find a better version. It is from what I think is one of the best Christmas movies there has been: you may disagree, but I’ll tell you that you’re wrong if you do! Probably not for anyone who thinks Die Hard is a Christmas movie, though:

As I’m sure you spotted, that video of Christmas Is All Around is really the beginning of the movie, Love Actually, which I watch every year. Usually I have to find it in the tv schedules or on a streaming service but when iTunes offered it to me for just £2.99 I thought ‘why not,’ so I can now watch it whenever I want! It doesn’t aspire to be ‘great art,’ but is simply a load of fun and schmaltz, just what we all need now and again. Bill Nighy is – as he always is – superb in the role of Billy Mack, a faded pop star making a comeback with a seasonal rip off of one of the biggest hits the UK has ever known, and the rest of the cast is large and stellar. To coincide with the movie Billy Mack managed to complete a version of this ‘solid gold shit’ that was released as a single, and it made #26 in the UK at Christmas 2003.

This next one is one of the biggest ever Christmas hits here in the UK. It has been revisited twice, on its 20th anniversary in 2004 and again this year for its 40th, but this is the original from 1984 – still the best for me:

What can I say about this, that hasn’t been said before? It was written by Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats) and Midge Ure (Ultravox) after Geldof had been moved by a tv news report on the famine in Ethiopia. He assembled a collection of the UK’s biggest pop star names of the time, made the single on 25 November 1984, and the rest is history. It was released on 3 December, just eight days later, entered the UK chart at #1 and stayed there for five weeks, was #1 in a further thirteen countries and also made #13 in the US, where it sold 2.5m of its worldwide 12m copies. Geldof had hoped to raise £70k for charity: within a year it had raised £8m. It led to the Live Aid concerts the following year, those two further versions, the American copy of the idea for their We Are The World (actually guys, you aren’t, but I know what you meant), countless other charity singles and events. And it is actually quite a good song, too, especially when you consider how quickly it was all put together. Despite the newer attempts this is the granddaddy of them all: it has been in our Christmas charts a further twenty times since then, including this year – currently at #12 having peaked at #8.

I play this song every year, but usually in the UK hit version by Steeleye Span, and not on Christmas Day. But I think I’ve been off with that timing as it is definitely one for today. Here’s another version, which I think is lovely:

The Mediaeval Baebes with their version of Gaudete, a sacred Christmas carol, thought to have been composed in the 16th century. It was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs in 1582 in the North German city of Greifswald. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books, possibly going back as far as 1420. The Mediaeval Baebes are a British choral group who have been together for around thirty years and have enjoyed some chart success in their time. I’ve seen them in concert and they are as delightful as this performance suggests.

I’m closing today’s bumper collection of tunes with one that I always play. Christmas for me just wouldn’t seem right without this, in its original and best version:

Many have tried to cover this one but none have got remotely close, to my ears. It seems that I’m not the only one who likes Fairytale of New York, either: that video has upwards of 101m YouTube views. It was written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan of The Pogues, was originally released in November 1987 and peaked at #2 in the UK that year. It was prevented from being the Christmas #1 by The Pet Shop Boys’ dreadful synth-based rending of Always On My Mind. Still, Kirsty and The Pogues have probably had the last laugh, as the song has reached the Christmas charts here in the UK on a further twenty two occasions since then, including an unbroken run since 2005. In this year’s Christmas chart it is at #10 having reached a peak for this year of #8. Over the years it has totted up a total on 131 weeks in the UK charts, including a further 6 so far this year, but I still think it was robbed by never being #1! It also featured on The Pogues’ 1988 album If I Should Fall From Grace With God, which peaked at #3 in the UK and at #88 in the US, though it has never been a hit single in the States. Come to that, none of their other records have been, either. I’m playing this one with real sadness: Kirsty was taken from us way too young – at the age of just 41 – back in December 2000, as the result of a collision with an out of control speedboat from which she was protecting her children, and Shane passed on 30 November 2023 at the age of 65. Their legacy lives on in this song, though.

This is the final post for this year’s Advent Countdown, and for the past few I’ve been closing with the wonderful ads made by Hafod Hardware between 2017 and 2020. To complete the set, here is the 2020 one:

As with all of their ads they had a very limited budget, most of which was spent on acquiring the rights to use the music. The reason I return to them is that I think they get right to the heart of what Christmas should be about, and they do it far better than the big retailers and their advertising agencies. The star of the video is little Arthur, who was 3 at the time. The music for all four ads has been by Andrea Von Kampen, and the beautiful simplicity of her songs is a perfect fit. The song in this one – Hard Times Come Again No More – is actually a real oldie, which has become a traditional folk song in the US. It was written by Stephen Foster (the ‘father of American music’) in 1854, and its message of asking the fortunate to consider those less lucky than themselves is just as true today as ever. It is just so right for Hafod’s message of giving what you can, which is possibly even more relevant now than it was four years ago, and is a fitting place for me to conclude this year’s Advent posts. I hope you’ve enjoyed them.

All that remains is for me to say that I will be back shortly for a couple of sets of songs for the New Year, and I hope to see you then. Before that I’ll be taking a couple of days off and will see you again for Song Lyric Sunday.

One last picture for the road? OK then:

My sentiments exactly! 🤣

And on that note, I wish you a very