Our staff share their favourite – and sometimes their least favourite – songs on the radio at Christmas time.

I love really old carols that lean more towards the amusingly dramatic than the soppy – ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’, ‘We Three Kings’ and so on. I’m not sure why, I think perhaps they feel more festive than songs like ‘Grown-Up Christmas List’, which is like nails careening down a blackboard for me. Or maybe it is because they lend themselves more readily to singing in rounds! Regardless, it’s not that I don’t like slow songs, ‘Silent Night’ is a favourite, it’s more that I have a lifelong aversion to sentimental songs (to put this in context: I cannot stand the Titanic theme song or ‘Kissing You’ from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet – sorry Celine and Des’ree, they are just not for me). I will never tire of ‘Ave Maria’ or Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’, both of which I’ve seen on Christmas song lists, but I don’t know how anyone can listen to them at Christmas – I am constitutionally incapable of listening to any version of either without my eyes mysteriously leaking.
– Elke Power, Editor of Readings Monthly

Depending on your own preference, I am one of those annoying / like-minded people who love carols, even going so far as to listen to them when it’s not even Christmas. A few years ago I made a mix which I still listen to today. The songs on it range from the more traditional (‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’, ‘Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow’) to the less so (Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’, Paul Kelly’s ‘How To Make Gravy’). My mum always requests Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas is You’ and my sister always requests Tim Minchin’s ‘White Wine in the Sun’. The Christmas songs I generally don’t enjoy are novelty ones like ‘I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus’ and ‘All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth’. I just had an inward shudder remembering those two.
– Bronte Coates, Digital Content Coordinator

Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas is You’! There are no bad Christmas tunes (except maybe Jazz).
– Jan Lockwood, Human Resources Manager

I was brought up in a house of Neil Diamond fanatics so my parents used to continuously play Neil Diamond’s The Christmas Album. Now that I have the say in our household, my favourite album is Curious George’s Christmas Carols (which came with a matching book). I bought it for my kids a couple of years ago. The album contains original funked-up recordings of classics such as ‘O Christmas Tree’, ‘Deck the Halls’, ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘Silent Night’. It completely rocks and the kids love it too!
– Emily Harms, Head of Marketing and Communications