I continue to be delighted with what you can find on Spotify.

Okay one of my favorite things about the runup to Christmas is Christmas music. No, shut up, I don't like that stuff they play in the shops. I think that's mostly horrible and wish that it would go away. The only modern Christmas song I like is Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and that's because it's The Pogues and it's Fairytale of New York. Oh, and I have a guilty fondness for Make Love Your Goal by Frankie Goes to Hollywood but that's only a Christmas song in that it was first released about this time of year and shouldn't really be on those compilations in the first place.

What I really like is the older stuff - the traditional songs and hymns and things that they sing in the churches. Not only are they so much prettier, they've actually lasted, and I've finally come to terms with the fact that I'm a shameless antiquarian and think things are so much more awesome if they're really old and still around. Very odd, as I always used to think I was a shameless modernist, but no. Give me carols and cathedrals any day.

Plus - and you can throw rocks at me if you like - I personally find that the festive music that was made back when Christmas really meant something that wasn't just CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME and oh God please let this be Christmas number one please has so much more to say for itself, and so much more power to move, than anything which runs last Christmas, I gave you my heart. Some of the traditional music I've heard leaves me near tears; the ditties on The Best Christmas Album In The World... Ever! make me want to throw my stereo out the window or, in extreme cases, rip off my own ears. If you like that kind of thing then that's the kind of thing you like, but I'd rather have something a little less disposable and a little more - pardon me - heartfelt.

Anyway. I blame my family. Specifically, I blame my dad. Sometime when I wasn't looking, I turned into him.

The point of all this is that I've managed - courtesy of my Spotify player - to track down copies of two of my absolute favorite Christmas albums, Chanticleer's Sing We Christmas and the Healy-Hutchinson Carol Symphony my family own both on CD and on record and usually play over Christmas dinner. (If I recall correctly, I believe the record still plays.) This is music that I associate so closely with Christmas as a child that it's damn near painful, and just being able to listen to it again now - before heading home - makes me feel incredibly happy.

Now to try and find an a capella choral version of Stille Nacht.