A real mixed bag for you from behind Day 22 on my Advent Calendar. There are four songs, two of which I haven’t played before though they are by return visitors, plus a fun little piece from one of my favourite tv shows that I played last year but am giving to you again as I like it.

The first one today 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 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 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. It felt like a good place to begin today. By the way, this song was released as a single and made #26 in the UK at Christmas 2003.

Today’s next two are both by acts who I’ve played earlier on but wanted to include again. On Day 8 I played Sia’s lovely animation for her song Snowman, which is one of three themed ones that she has made. Here’s one of the others:

Like Snowman this was a track on her album Everyday Is Christmas, released in November 2017, reaching #39 in the UK and #27 in the US. This one wasn’t released as a single, but I rather like it and the cute video, as well as Sia’s slightly husky voice.

The next band has already appeared twice this season, on Day 5 backing the lovely Patty Gurdy, and again on Day 13 when I played the animation for the title track on their new album, Seven Holy Nights. I wasn’t planning on playing them for a third time, but when they released this video for another of the album’s tracks I couldn’t resist it:

I think I’m drawn to Fiddler’s Green as they are a kind of Irish (ok, German) equivalent to one of my favourites – Bellowhead – and there is a touch of the Dropkick Murphys about them too. In case you didn’t recognise the song, it is a little number by the title of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – and you really need to get out more!

I missed this one in 2020, when it was newly released during the lockdown, but shared it last year and as it is fun I thought I’d play it again:

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain are always enjoyable. They are talented musicians who inject a huge amount of humour into what they do: excellent as a live act, if you ever get the chance to see them.

Today’s final offering is also one I played last year when the video was first released. If you don’t have Apple TV+ you might not have heard of their show Ted Lasso, which is about an American brought over here to coach a (fictitious) English Premier League team. It is just about the best thing they have done, amongst many superb originals, and I live in hope that the promised final season 3 will be with us soon, having not had any new ones to watch this year. Last year they gave us this little Christmas special, though:

If you haven’t watched the show you might not realise how good those characterisations actually are but trust me, they are perfect. Just watching this again now makes me realise how good the show is, and how much I have enjoyed watching it: if they don’t get a shift on and give us season 3 soon I may need to go back to the first two to get my Ted Lasso fix! Having given you several tearjerkers as my closing videos I thought it about time for something different: Ted’s homespun philosophy and the show’s gentle humour feel just right for that.

That’s all for today, and now we just have three more days to go. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I’ll be playing you some themed favourites, and for tomorrow I’ll be sharing something new and a few oldies too. Do drop in again then. Just time for an image of the day before I oil the sleigh:

See you tomorrow 🧸