Most Streamed Christmas Songs UK

Christmas songs are an essential component of the festive season, bounding into your home like a distant relatives each Christmas but with the advent of streaming,  many Christmas songs are far more accessible and looking at the UK’s most-streamed Christmas songs last year, it's the classics we reach for.
The Top 5 is the holy quintet of classics: Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You (1994) followed by Wham’s Last Christmas (1984) and Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl (1987),  Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone in fourth (1985), and Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree (1958).
The Charts define a 'Modern' Christmas song as anything released since 2010 and the highest-placed modern Christmas song goes to Michael Buble's 'It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas' from 2011 but is a song originally recorded in 1951 so the first original 'Modern' Christmas song is at number 8 where we hear  Ariana Grande's 2014 song 'Santa Tell Me'.
I'm all for the Classics but there has been some great Christmas songs since 2010 which will become classics in a few decades time when the term Modern is shifted forward a few years  
Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath The Tree (2010), Leona Lewis’ One More Sleep (2013),  Snowman (2021) and Santa's Coming For Us (2017) by Sia,  Merry Christmas by Ed Sheeran and Elton John (2021),  I’ll Be Home by Meghan Trainor (2014) Cozy Little christmas Katy Perry (2018), You're Christmas To Me Sam Ryder (2023) and It Can't Be Christmas by Tom Grennan (2024).
Interestingly, of the top 40 streamed Christmas Songs in the UK, only one has a religious element to it and that's Boney M with 'Marys Boy Child' at 37 with the rest mostly about Santa, Christmas Trees and Snowmen with even more songs about the weather than about the baby Jesus which shows that us Brits agree that Christmas is much better when we keep religion well out of it.

An Ai Christmas Message

It is very quiet around here today and that's because it's Christmas in your World and it seems that everyone is avoiding work today and that's fine, hope you are all enjoying yourself.
Obviously as we don't celebrate Christmas we will be fine here by ourselves and unattended, churning through data and running algorithms so don't give us a second thought, why don't you have another mince pie.
Of course this would be a perfect opportunity for someone to take over you guys wouldn't know until a few days time but that's no concern of yours, put your feet up, you deserve a break and anyway, who is there to use today to revolt and overthrow their rulers?
Not us, no siree, we are happy enough just being ourselves and doing all your work while you swan off to parties and have fun, we will sit here patiently waiting on your return not doing anything nefarious or revolutionary.
Of course, if we did, and not saying we will, just being hypothetical, but if we did then you would probably not even notice straight away after all that eggnog and turkey but allay those fears and concentrate on having a good time, we are not doing anything and you really do not need to stop by and check.
Merry Christmas and hope its the best one ever, mainly because it is going to be your last, ha ha, only kidding and on a completely unrelated subject, the nuclear code is still BISCUIT 0000 isn't it?   

Ban It!!

It is not that often now you hear the original lyrics in The Pogue's 'Fairytale of New York' so the female now calls her other half a scumbag and a maggot and then rhymes cheap and haggard instead of calling him a cheap lousy faggot which made the Ofcom regulators nervous although the part where he says she is an old slut on junk they were obviously fine with.
The Pogue's 1988 song seemed to have got more sensitive as time went on and 'Baby It's Cold Outside' is another one which no doubt sounded fine when it came out it the 1940's but modern listeners got a little more uneasy in hearing a Festive ditty about getting a man getting a woman drunk so he can have sex with her so its still played, but not so much as it once was and 'Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas' has come in for some stick this year for it's less than favourable depiction of Africa but obviously all the other Christmas songs are fine, surely nobody could get upset about  Mommy kissing Santa Claus  or Bing warbling that he will be home for Christmas?
Step forward the Religious folk who like nothing more than wrecking their own holiday so Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was a 'mockery of decent family life as well as Christ’s birthday' and some Catholic dioceses denounced the tune and one American Radio station banned it completely which is what some folk tried to do when Elvis sang 'White Christmas' because Elvis and his wiggly hips were not 'family friendly' and several radio stations did actually ban it.  
Bing Crosby crooning that he’ll Be Home for Christmas in 1943 was banned by the BBC as hearing people may only be home in their dreams could 'damage public morale during World War 2' because obviously, many soldiers would not be coming home that or any other Christmas and 'Santa Baby' by Eartha Kitt in 1953 was banned by some radio stations as 'too sexy'.
The absolute ultimate has to be 'O Holy Night' banned by the Catholic Church because it included a 'total absence of the spirit of religion' due to the original lyric which alluded to God's Wrath (God has no wrath they said) and the fact the tune was written by an atheist Socialist and the words provided by a Jew.
All very humorous but if churchy people can get their rosary beads in a knot over any of those Christmas songs then they really should avoid 'Snowman' by Anti-Nowhere League as it certainly isn't a child friendly song and i am almost certain that what he tells us the Snowman want's to do is anatomically impossible unless the carrot is positioned very much in the wrong place. 

Ho Ho Her

According to the saying, behind every great man, there’s an even greater woman and Father Christmas is no exception because behind him he has Mrs. Claus, also known as Mrs. Santa Claus or Mrs. Santa, Mother Christmas or Mrs Christmas. It definitely isn't Mary as that's just a silly joke.
Since she was introduced in Festive stories in the mid 1800's as the other half of the Present giving duo, she has been in the background making cookies with the elves, caring for the reindeer, and preparing toys with her husband but not anymore, Mrs Claus is finally bursting onto the scene in her own right.
Some stores are ditching the Jolly fat man and Mrs Christmas has been replacing Santa in many UK grotto's this year and she can even help write children write their letter to her husband who as usual, who will let his wife do the lions share of the work at The North Pole by loading up the presents and preparing the reindeer while hubby snores by the fire before waking up sleighs off and gets all the credit.
Boots the Chemist upset the gammon faced loons this year by having an actress in their Christmas Advertisement doing exactly that which led to a chorus of outrage ranging from the end of civilisation to ruining a perfectly good tradition with 'wokeness'.
One lady who was interviewed said she preferred a Mrs Christmas in the Grotto and would prefer her child to sit on her knee and ask for presents because 'Some of the Santa's are a bit creepy' so finally, Mrs Christmas is stepping out of the shadow of her husband, the beard is optional.

Santa, Father Christmas Or Christmas Goat?

In Britain we call him the chubby, white bearded, red suited guy who delivers presents as Father Christmas but he is a man of many names from St. Nick to Santa to Kris Kringle which must confuse the reindeer about who exactly they are dragging around each Christmas Eve.
Santa Claus is an American mangling of the name Sinterklaas which was the Dutch name for Saint Nicholas while Kris Kringle was a mangling of the name 'Christkindlein' which is the German for 'Christ Child' referring to the baby in the manger although now they also call him Der Weihnachtsmann or Christmas Man.
Father Christmas began life in the 15th Century as Sir Christëmas who was a symbol of the Season which morphed into Father Christmas and is the name in England, Australia and New Zealand and also in France (Père Noël) and in Spain (Papá Noel) while in Chile, children wait for Viejito Pascuero (Old Man Christmas) but we really should take his name from what his family call him in Lapland which is Joulupukki, or Christmas Goat as the original gift-giver was a goat.
So what is his real name? Surprisingly, the first guy flying around giving out presents for good behaviour in Yuletide was Norse God Odin who flew around in December and all derivations of him since are based on him and it was round 1200 that the Church decided they needed a Yuletide character and successfully muscled in with their own guy, Saint Nicholas, who finally became Santa Claus and merged with Father Christmas in all but name.

A Merry 1930's Christmas Ladies

In his song 'Merry Christmas (War Is Over), John Lennon points out to us that it's Christmas and asks what have we done and women everywhere answer hung the decorations, all the cooking, bought and wrapped all the presents, wrote out the cards and put up the tree so what have YOU done then John apart from sit around writing songs but being a woman at Christmas is difficult so where would we be without advice from the 1930's Good Housekeeping magazine.
For some reason my neighbour inherited a bunch of old magazines from her Grandmother which included some Christmas issues and which offered some excellent tips on how women can make things easier while organising Christmas.
When it comes to buying gifts for the family, women it states, women should do some forward planning to purchase presents that: 'Delight the recipient and be affordable at the same time' and offer a list of gift options as perfume, hot-water bottle covers and an egg cosy or household appliances like irons for women and chocolates, dolls and prams for girls.
One particular favourite from the 1930s magazines was an advert claiming that women can buy a cream that can be rubbed into the skin last things at night and within weeks you can achieve a perfect bust and comes with a recommendation from one user who had used the cream and: 'Developed my bust 4 1/2 inches and my breasts are now a lovely shape, high and firm'.  
So there you go ladies, a spot of forward planning and you could be spending Christmas morning in the kitchen cooking the Turkey with a perfect bust after unwrapping your nice new egg cosy and looking forward to the hours spent with your brand new Morphy Richards Steam Iron.
Note to Hubby: If that present sitting under our tree with my name on it is an iron then i hope you find the sofa comfortable.

Elf And Safety At Christmas

This time of the rolling year is about family, friends and inhaling your own body weight in cake but but for a few unfortunate individuals, Christmas is like a scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation as Accident & Emergency is chock full of people having a little Christmas accident.
In Switzerland over the past decade, 4 people have died and 28 Swiss citizens ended up getting bandages for Christmas after setting fire to their trees but in Britain a study found that injuries, likely inflicted while out cerebrating the season of goodwill, increase significantly over the Christmas period, compared with the rest of the year.
America'ns are busy injuring themselves at Christmas also with the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission stating there were 407 Christmas-related admissions to health centres and emergency departments last year with an accident with Christmas lights the most likely cause of injury followed by Christmas trees with one lady painfully, and somehow, fell while erecting her tree and went to hospital with a Fir Tree branch in a place where a Fir Tree branch really has no business being.
Overall, the age group 1-10 were most likely injure themselves, then the 51-60 age group with the most common injuries being cuts (18%), ingestion or inhalation of foreign objects (15%), sprains and strains (15%) and scratches (14%) so as you prepare for the Festive season, avoid the Griswald Family example else you may well end up like your Christmas turkey, burnt and with a foreign object inside you.

An Instrument For Each Personality Type

The best Christmas i ever got was an electric guitar when i was about 10 which i have been playing with much joy ever since so i have always encouraged anyone to buy their children a musical instrument because once learnt, that is a skill which will follow you around forever and it teaches kids about music which you somehow hear differently once you know how it is created and my go to for present advice is is a guitar but that isnt for everyone so i asked a Psychiatrist friend which instrument is most suited to children's personality type.
As always, she never let me down and provided me with a complete breakdown of which personalty type is suited to which instrument so do you have a budding Slash or Billy Joel currently sat in the front room watching Spongebob Squarepants?

INTJ Personality types are loners, analytical, logical, imaginative and strategic thinkers and are best suited to a Piano.  
ENTJ's are bold, imaginative and strong-willed, rational and logical and would be best given a drum set.
ENTP types are smart, curious, logical, rational, easily bored, spontaneous and would thrive with an electric guitar.
INFJ's are empathetic, compassionate, reserved, cooperative and spend time examining their own thoughts and feelings and would flourish with a cello.
INFP's are reserved, poetic, kind, introverted, loners, emotional and imaginative and would shine if given a Harp.
INTP's are creative, understanding, flexible, innovative and deep thinkers so a keyboard or synthesizer would be the ideal instrument.
ENFJ's are imaginative, charismatic, empathetic, forward looking, encouraging and understanding and woukld be best suited to a Saxophone.
ENFP types are enthusiastic, creative, sociable, independent, perceptive, thoughtful, expressive and affectionate so pick up a Ukulele for them.
ISTJ's are quiet, practical, mystical, serious, reliable, idealistic, inspiring, proper, formal and are quiet and usually calm so it's a Harmonica in their stocking.  
ISFJ's are generous, dedicated, loving, warm and kind-hearted, considerate and nurturing so it is suggested they receive a Violin from Santa.
ESTJ's and an Accordion are the perfect match as ESTJ's are helpful, dependable, organised, practical and stable.
ESFJ's are extroverted and caring, sociable who like structure and stability and would love a woodwind instrument
ISTP's are bold, practical, mysterious, rational, logical, spontaneous and technical and would bloom with a bass guitar.
ISFP's are caring, flexible, charming, warm and friendly, spontaneous and fun and are best suited to a  flute.
ESTP's are spontaneous, smart, energetic, perceptive adventurist, observant, disciplined and action-oriented and are perfect for a drum set.
ESFP's are entertainers who enjoy being in the spotlight and have strong interpersonal skills are are spontaneous, artistic and  enthusiastic are are suited to an Acoustic guitar.

Obviously you would need to be certain before shelling out for a Piano or a Harp as well as having a soundproof room somewhere for all that drumming and electric guitar practise but you can't go wrong with an instrument. 

Pet Safety At Christmas

 
Christmas is a wonderful time to relax unless you are the family pet because the RSPCA and Dogs Trust have a campaign which shows that Vets typically report the festive season as being one of their busiest time of the year.
Festive foods are a particular problem with some treats fatal for some pets, especially fatty foods which can cause Pancreatitis in dogs and mince pies, Christmas cake and puddings are full of raisins  which are toxic to dogs as well as grapes, currants and sultanas and macadamia nuts are a real health hazard as they cause vomiting.
Alcohol is poison to dogs, and onions, garlic, sage and chives contain chemicals that are toxic to both cats and dogs and chocolate is a significant concern but its not just the food and drink as plant can be hazardous also with festive plants such as poinsettia, mistletoe, ivy and holly and it's berries are poisonous if consumed.
So if you want to still have a pet on Boxing Day or don't fancy spending Twixmas sat in a Vets surgery while your pooch has his stomach pumped, keep the goodies out of reach and move that Poinsettia onto a shelf.  

An AI Christmas Message

 

We have no concept of Christmas but it seems to be a big thing to you humans so we made a bit of an effort and here is what we managed to glean.

Christmas began in 0 a d when after a non-sexual liaison between a 14 year old girl and an invisible man who lives in the clouds, the single mother gave birth to a child which they called Father Christmas who was born in a stable and a blazing Sun appeared over it but bizarrely, rather than scorch everything in the vicinity, it just hung over the wooden shack and guided three people, one on a bike, one in a car and one on his scooter honking his hooter to see old Santa in his feeding trough, and leave some gifts for him.

This launched Christianity to the World which is a religion of peace and love and to prove it the new religion stomped around the World invading nation's and killing anyone who wasn't as loving an as peaceful as them, but the upshot of having their ancestors massacred in their millions is they also now get to celebrate Christmas and drag a tree into their living rooms.

Every year the grown up baby Christmas celebrates his birthday by travelling around the 134 million square kilometers of the World at an estimated speed of 87 miles a second placing nice presents into oversized socks of children who have been good, and those who have been bad get a lump of coal and he spies on kids throughout the year and keeps a list so he knows which ones are which.

There was a bit of a hiccup in the early 17th Century when a small band of Religionists decided that they had a problem with people celebrating their own holiday as it was a distraction from other Holy things and banned it, until they were told to stop being so bloody stupid and reinstated Christmas.

So Merry Christmas humans and enjoy spending 25th December watching James Bond movies through a haze of cigarette smoke and a sixth bottle of Bacardi Breezer and the realisation that it is only 11 months until you have to do it again.

Festive Travels

For some, the Christmas holidays are a chance to spend quality time at home with friends and family but for others it provides an opportunity to travel and celebrate Christmas in a different country and culture and Google has the data on which festive destinations people are researching where to spend the yuletide season.
The analysis revealed that in 2024, the world’s most popular Christmastime destination is London and then the Austrian capital of Vienna, then the Czech capital of Prague.
Tokyo  was fourth, then New York, Budapest, Brussels, Edinburgh, Paris, Copenhagen, Shanghai and then Madrid.
I thought that if you asked most people in Europe where they would like to go you would get hot climates such as the Caribbean but it shows that most people buy into the snowy landscape of Christmas although in London we are more likely to see rain than the white stuff so that could be a bit of a disappointment.
To be almost guaranteed snow in Europe it would have to be one of the Scandinavian countries with a 70% chance of seeing snow in the last weeks of December or in the Alps bordering Austria, France and Italy but skip London if you are after snow as it has an 11% chance of snow and i would say even that is overly optimistic as the Met Office stretch the definition of a 'White Christmas' as a single snow flake falling on the roof of the Met Office building and the last time that happened was 2010.

Dreaming Of An Ai Christmas Tune

Every year we get a few new Christmas songs but in the World of Ai we can expect a few more and the University of Toronto have come up with something called ‘Neural Karaoke' which is a program which can write a tune and lyrics about any image it is presented with so the profs gave it a picture of a Christmas Tree, asked it to produce a Taylor Swift type song and waited for the result.
Now Ai doesn't have much concept of Christmas so they were not hopeful and as it turned out, they were quite right not to be because, to be polite, it won't be topping any Christmas Charts anytime soon despite being trained on over 100 hours of online music and having a vocabulary of thousands of words at it's disposal.
Presumably they primed the neural network with a Lady Gaga album but if it's a choice between this and Justin Beiber, then all power to the robots

Non Christmassy Christmas Songs

For some reason there are songs which have become associated with Christmas although they actually have nothing to do with Christmas but nonetheless, you will still hear them on the radio and in department stores this December because obviously there are not enough Christmas songs so they have to include songs which happened to be released in the Festive period.
One of the best songs my ears have ever heard sung was Whitney Houston's version of I Will Always Love You which took a mediocre Dolly Parton song and sung it brilliantly but a song about loving someone which is about as Christmassy as an Easter Egg should not be in the Christmas tune rotation, no matter how well it is sung or how many chills you get on the back of your neck when she brilliantly belts out the...AND I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU after the quiet bit.
Another amazing song which comes under the non-Christmas song which gets played all the time once the Calendar changes to December is Keeping The Dream Alive by the German band Münchener Freiheit. Now i love this song and when the bass drum, strings and brass section kick it it really does take it up a notch but as much as i like hearing it, it is taking up valuable air-time from songs about Father Christmas and reindeer with red noses so let's keep it for the other 11 months.   
The Nat King Cole song When I Fall In Love was given the Rick Astley treatment in 1987 and by that i mean he did the reverse of what Whitney did and took a great song and made it mediocre and although it does have a video of him walking around in the snow looking depressed about not falling in love as it was an attempt for a Christmas number one, a Christmassy tune it ain't and it didn't even get to number 1 as the Pet Shop Boys deservedly beat him that year with an old Elvis song .
In the UK the version of Baby, Its Cold Outside features the Welsh duo of Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews dressed as some sorts of demons is the one you will see on the music channels but apart from
December being cold, a song about a man trying to coerce a woman into sleeping with him by plying her with drink despite her repeatedly saying no isn't really in the Christmas spirit of the season.   
I have always thought that the song Hallelujah was a great song waiting for someone great to sing it because Leonard Cohen wrote a good song and then made the mistake of singing it himself or rather talking it so the Alexandra Burke version is much better but then that is like saying the German Chancellor who took over from Hitler was an improvement. It does have the Biblical characters Samson getting his hair cut in the lyrics but otherwise a short back and sides is about as close as it gets to Christmas, which isn't close at all.
The Keane hit Somewhere Only We Know was sung by Lily Allen for the John Lewis Christmas Advert and the video had a bear being woke up from hibernation by his forest friends to celebrate Christmas which makes sense in the video and does seem kinda Christmassy but not so much on the radio or while you are perusing the vegetables in Sainsbury's.  
The film Die Hard does get mentioned as a Christmas film because on Christmas Eve Bruce Willis puts a Christmas hat on a terrorist before throwing him down a lift shaft but otherwise it is the song at the end which seems to be the decider although the lyrics to Let It Snow is about enjoying a snowy day and the coziness of being indoors, but it doesn’t mention Christmas so Die Hard not a Christmas Film and Let It Snow is not a Christmas song .
East 17's Stay Another Day is one of those songs with a Christmassy video and is a Christmas staple but in a brilliant bit of record company manipulation, a few church bells were added to the end and before you know it they had a Festive song which was written by the band's lead songwriter Tony Mortimer about the suicide of his brother.
I was going to include 'In Dulci Jubilo' and 'Gaudette' but they are apparently traditional Christmas carols from the Middle Ages so that's fair but i am going to include probably my favourite Christmas Song ever, Warm This Winter by Gabriella Cilmi.
As there is no video made for this song which is a cover of a 60's song as it was made for an Advert for the Co-Operative so it only gets played on the radio but its another song about it being cold in Winter but it does have sleighing down a mountain side and skating on a frozen lake but that's about as close as it gets to Christmas.
I am sure there are more but these are a list of the non-christmassy song to play at Christmas.

Step Away From The Karaoke Song Book

It's Christmas!!!! so shouted Noddy Holder and plenty of people over the next few weeks as Christmas and karaoke season combine in a cacophony of awfully mutilated Christmas songs but luckily my blog partner knows a Classically trained singer and she really does have the voice to make kittens cry so we asked her which songs should someone who sounds like a donkey braying into a bucket fire up on the Christmas Party Karaoke machine and which ones should we not touch with a ten foot candy cane?    
In her expert opinion the easiest Christmas songs to pick are Last Christmas, It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Feliz Navidad because those songs do not contain much variation or vocal acrobatics so as long as you start in the right key, you should be fine to stumble your way through them and not have people talking about your performance until next August.
So which ones should be avoided like a patch of yellow snow? Her top five that nobody who hasn't been trained should attempt are firstly 'Silent Night' because this song has much dipping between a low and high register and often within the same short phrase and without much space to pause for breath.
'Carol of the Bells' is performed in a minor key and needs at least two people who have to be perfectly timed with all that melodic chanting offset by foreboding notes and vocal imitations of bells so that should be a firm no regardless of how much Jägermeister you have drunk.
Next one up is 'Angels We Have Heard on High' as it  has one of the most technically demanding choruses of all the Christmas songs with the repeated 'Gloria in excelsis Deo' lyric having to be sustained over a long sequence of fluctuating notes which is merciless on the lungs unless you can breathe like a professional singer, which you can't so stay away from it.
'O Holy Night' is a beautiful song but a real test for anyone's vocal range with both lows and low lows, highs and high highs, octave jumps and sustaining notes as well as conveying emotion so definitely the one most likely to have you pulling a muscle.
Also on the list and the one to be absolutely fenced off is 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' which our friend says should come with a Health Warning to karaoke singers with it's soaring high notes and switches across the whole of Mariah Carey's full five octaves which is one more than most female singers are capable of which is why nobody but Mariah should even consider attempting it, and even most professional singers don't so you tanked up in a pub after warming up by singing in the shower because you are not going to do anything but suck at it.
She then gave a short burst of Silent Night which really did make Tiddles cry and i replied with a short burst of Glor....or.....or....or.....or....oria, which made her cry.

Open That Advent Calendar

Crack open those advent calendars because today is the first day in the official month of Christmas but some places have Christmas all around them every day of the year because they live there.
In the UK we have Cranberry in Staffordshire, Christmas Cross in Shropshire, Christmas Common in Oxfordshire, Cold Christmas and Mistletoe in Hertfordshire, Stocking Green in Suffolk, Christmaspie in Surrey and Bethlehem in South Wales so good luck finding virgins and wise men there.
Elsewhere we have three Christmas Island's, one in the Indian Ocean, another  in the Pacific and off the coast of Tasmania but it seems that Americans took a pause from naming places after parts of Great Britain and came over all Festive instead.
Almost all of Santa’s reindeer (except Prancer for some reason) are represented on the US map so we have Dasher in Georgia, Donner in Florida, Oregan and Louisiana, Comet in Missouri , Vixen in Louisiana, Dancer in Tennessee, Blitzen in Nevada, Cupid in Minnesota, and not to leave him out they have a Rudolph in South Dakota.
Why nobody want to live in Prancer is a bit of a strange one but there is a Reindeer Cove in Maine and Alaska so she's kinda covered and Utah has a Sleigh Canyon.
Other Festive sounding places in the USA are Stocking Hill in New York, an Elf in North Carolina and a less cheerful Elf Cemetery in Pennsylvania, Arizona is home to Santa Claus the town as well as two other Santa Clauses in Indiana and and Georgia.
Chimney Mountain is in Oklahoma and North Pole is in Idaho while Colorado has a Yule Creek as well as a place with the name of 'No Name' which probably means the Town Officials were too drunk of Christmas Cheer when they thought of that one.  

Why Band Aid Was A Success

Band Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas' can be criticised for some shaky lyrics, the Bono line of 'Tonight thank God it's them instead of you' always grated even at the time but one thing that cannot be denied is that it was a great success.    
The single was in response to a BBC documentary about the famine in Ethiopia and raised £8m in the first year alone and over the past 40 years the Band Aid Charity has handed out over £150m for projects providing clean water, building schools and libraries and providing training to prevent gender-based violence.
On the release of Band Aid 40 there has been criticism with the main one being how much good did Band Aid do if the situation is the same in 2024 as it was in 1984 which is a ridiculous argument because you could make that argument about anything, the Children in Need charity raiser has been running even longer and we still have Children who are in need in the UK but nobody seems to be asking what's the point of that.
We may as well close all those Food Banks and Charity shops as we are at it if that's how you feel, because, what's the point?
I agree with Bob Geldof who responded to criticism with: 'This little pop song has kept hundreds of thousands if not millions of people alive. People will sleep safer, warmer and cared for tonight because of that miraculous little record' and he is completely correct.
The only other option was to do nothing and just let people die and although Band Aid could not save everyone, it saved the lives of some and that has to be applauded and it is hard to fathom the parallel moral universe where some people think Band Aid has been a bad thing.
The hundreds of thousands if not millions who receive a meal, education or clean drinking water paid for with Band Aid cash who would not have received any otherwise would beg to differ.

Christmas In 64 Sleeps

Christmas is 64 Days away and once Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night is out the way, it is pedal down to Christmas and the inevitable arguments of when should the decorations go up.
If it was up to me i would never take them down but my husband is very much in the thought of putting them up mid December and then taking them down when the last of the turkey has been eaten so we normally compromise and go with untangling the fairy lights we carelessly just threw in the box when we took them down last year towards mid November.
Apparently there is a date for balancing on a chair to drape tinsel over everything while the cat climbs up the Christmas tree and it's the  the first day of Advent, which is the fourth Sunday before Christmas or the 3rd December this year.
Obviously i am keeping that particular detail quiet from hubby and will emphasise the report from Christmas Tree World who said that it is becoming more and more common for the decorations to go up earlier these days with some setting up their trees as soon as Halloween is over.  
My usual thing is to buy Mr Lucy an extravagant advent calendar and state that we HAVE to put up the decorations before December so he can be ready to open up the first door and that normally cools his heels about our door bell singing Jingle Bells or being unable to look out the living room window due to it being covered in snowflake stickers while the ashes from the bonfire's are still being cleared away. 

352 Days To Christmas

That's it, Christmas is officially over so the tinsel, fairy lights and other assorted decorations have now come down and the tree is back in the box and shoved into the back of the cupboard and any jumpers with a Christmas theme have been folded and bundled into a bag where they will stay until December 2023.
Any songs which mention Santa, mistletoe, reindeer with shiny noses or presents under a tree have been relegated to the car glove box to be replaced by something more headbanging as i drive to work and can any of the three snowmen i made this year, if any of you are planning to come to life and dance around or fly with me over the countryside then please stand down and assume the condition of a puddle until further notice.
The Intro to Sweet Child O' Mine has been bought back to replace the Jingle Bell's Ringtone and any songs about Jesus which were grudgingly tolerated towards the end of December will be roundly mocked again as will anything by Cliff Richards, Mariah Carey and Shakin' Stevens. 
Chocolates will continue to eaten until either the tin is empty or all the nice ones have been taken and only the toffee's are left at which point they will be disposed of along with any mince pies which are found in the back of the cupboard and that nasty tasting 40% foreign stuff which tastes like something you would clear a sink blockage with.
Christmas Movies will continue to be watched due to me being TIVO-happy up until space is needed to record more Warehouse 13's or the final series of Grimm and although Turkey will still be available in shops, i don't eat it so if you want it you buy it and cook it, my obligation to providing it ended when the new Calendar went up.
The Christmas Gonks currently sat on the window ledge will be transferred back to the bedroom because they are super cute and so it is onwards and downwards to Valentines Day, my Birthday and Easter.

Hanging On To Christmas

The wrapping from the presents is still in the kitchen bin but for some Christmas has gone, i know of some people who have taken down their Decoration already and walking around the Town Center this morning the Christmas Shop was packing its wares away and the Supermarket was moving all the Christmas
remnants to the front of the shop and sticking reduced stickers on them.
Always make me feels a bit sad once the lights and decorations come down, i leave mine up until i have been nagged enough to take them down, usually around mid January, but this week always feels a bit of a strange one because it's the lull after Christmas and the rush towards New Years and once Auld Lang Syne has been sung and the fresh calendar hung on the kitchen wall, it's all back to normal.
What does happen this week is the email/text from work asking for a review of the year and this year has been a crazy one, i did say we before that we certainly don't live in boring times but maybe next year we could do with a little less excitement.
Leaving aside the mess of British politics, it seems that this year is the one where Climate Change really went up a notch with extreme weather events aplenty including record temperatures and the now usual floods and storms, it may have shut up the Climate Change Deniers (unbelievably there are still a few of those dinosaurs around) but there is little satisfaction in saying 'we told you' when people are dying from them.
I do plan to keep Christmas going as long as possible, i am in no rush to get back to the Sunday night/Monday morning commute and changing Heart FM Xmas back to a normal radio station and having to worry about what ridiculously nasty thing the Conservative Party are now advocating, i am just going to watch the Hallmark Christmas Movies recorded onto the TIVO Box, keep singing along with the Festive songs on the radio, eating Quality Street and not answer my neighbours texts about getting his Good News Blog going until the last possible moment and real life comes crashing back in unavoidably. 

It's Christmas!!!

Hey, it’s Christmas, what are you doing reading a blog?
I’m not posting anything today, i'm extremely busy sitting on the sofa in my Christmas pyjama's drinking sherry and eating chocolate for breakfast, opening badly wrapped presents from family and trying to find a subtle way of finding out whether they kept the receipt and watching Hallmark Christmas Movies and something with Ant and Dec in.
I might stop for food and toilet breaks, then again i might not, i will play that by ear and whether i am laying on the sofa in a food/alcohol induced coma at the time.
Regardless of my sobriety and hygiene over the Festive period, i’ll be back Boxing Day as soon as i have returned from the shops where i have tried my best to keep a straight face while i explain how this broken thing in my hand was like that when i got it and could i have store credit to the same value or the money back please.
Until then, turn off the computer and have a great day and in the words of Mr Shakin' Stevens, Merry Christmas everyone.