The Sound of Christmas

Like mincepies, festive music doesn't cross the Atlantic quite so neatly.

Over the course of three 'Holiday' seasons in the US I grew to love the anthem to consumerism that is Silver Bells. You just don't hear it very often over here. Which is a shame because our traffic lights are an equally festive red and green as those in the States. And we might call them pavements, not sidewalks, but they still get jolly busy with shoppers.

Still, no small consolation for me this year is that it seems, here in the UK, we're still playing East 17's 1994 Christmas number one, Stay Another Day.

TLOML is a bit confused about why a song which repeats the line 'don't think I can stand the pain', and has not a single reference to Santa or snow is festive.

Maybe it's the bells donging away, festively, in the background. Maybe it's the fact that it gets played on the radio a lot this time of year. Whatever it is, it sounds like a slice of Christmas music pie to me.