Les Bicyclettes' Advent Calendar of Christmas Songs - 2025

Les Bicyclettes' Advent Calendar of Christmas Songs - 2025

Album On Bandcamp: The Advent Calendar (Countdown to Christmas)

Album On Spotify: The Advent Calendar (Countdown to Christmas)

Video Single On YouTube: The Advent Calendar (Countdown to Christmas)

I love Christmas songs. I've always loved Christmas songs. Even the 'terrible' ones. (Except 'Lonely This Christmas.' I can't love that song. A hideous racket.)

As a youngster, Christmas was spent around our family's orange, suitcase record player listening to our one festive album - 'Gene Autrey's Christmas Cracker' - which featured many favourites, including 'Here Comes Santa Claus' and 'Up On The Rooftop.' It featured Autry's own introductions to the songs, and gave the impression of a live radio broadcast, into your home.

 

I was lucky enough to grow up in an era when the songs which are so familiar now (in some cases over familiar) were released for the first time, thus making them extremely fresh to my young ears. I wasn't yet cynically bored with 'Now! That's What I Call Christmas' - indeed, the excitement when that first compilation came out was palpable - the best* Christmas songs all in one place (*not Mud, obviously)!

Sadly, these days, it seems as if Christmas music (especially in T.V. or film) is permanently stuck in 1985, as is the myth that come Christmas Eve, snow will start falling just as a children's choir strike up a version of 'Silent Night' in the town square. (This, I will address in song form ...)

Following a natural weariness of hearing 'Step Into Christmas' in September when wandering around Sainsbury's or "the weather outside is frightful" when basking in the glow of an Indian Summer in early October, some people decided that an 'alternative' Christmas playlist was needed to counter Cliff, Slade and Woody.

Thus was born the 'indie' Christmas selections (St Etienne, Sufjan Stevens, Eels, Low, Fleet Foxes) which, to a degree, provided light relief from Wham! and the like). Trouble is ... endless plays of said songs makes you have to reconsider just what now can be termed 'alternative'. A debate for another time, another blog, by someone who works at The Guardian.

So what makes a 'good' Christmas song?

I would argue, the same thing that makes a good comedy or novelty song ... it ultimately and fundamentally has to be something of quality to begin with ... the 'Christmas' theme is a by-product. 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day' and 'Merry Christmas Everybody' are high-quality compositions, whatever the subject matter. Well-written, performed and produced they would lighten up any occasion. 

I would also make a case for sentiment ... even for Paul McCartney's 'Wonderful Christmas Time'. Are you having a wonderful time or are you lonely, blue, sad, happy, excited ... all themes the listener could potentially identify with.

Memories too are important ... does the song invoke childhood and the misty-eyed themes of snow, sleigh rides, Santa, Rudolph, presents in stockings?

Christmas is also about being at home with family ... incorporate this into your song and you're undoubtedly onto a winner.

However, as I said, you'll still need to have crafted a good song to accompany your themes and sentiments. Failing that, utter stupidity or whimsy!

I guess I can conclude that that there's no winning formula - otherwise we'd all be doing it. There may have been a time in the 80's where having a Christmas number one was a 'thing' (indeed, sales would almost double if you succeeded - based on people going into record shops (remember record shops? anyone? anyone) and asking "can I have whatever is number one, please?" as a present for a loved one. A bit like algorithms today!!

No doubt, someone cleverer than me has written many pages on Christmas songs, and what makes them what they are but for me, in essence, a Christmas song is a unique thing which can conversely also cover any multitude of topics, subjects or feelings ... love, hate, joy, sorrow, memories, wishes, kisses or just simple fun and good times! They can also frustrate the heck out of me - why can't I write one as good as Slade or Wizzard, or why can't I sing one as bad as Mud and yet still be appreciated?

Then we come to Christmas songs which aren't about Christmas at all.

'Stay Another Day' by East 17 is surely the most blatant of these but just happened to have a video with snow and hey presto - an annual royalty cheque from the usual compilations.  'Stop the Cavalry' by Jona Lewie is an anti-war song, as is 'Happy Xmas (War is Over)' by John Lennon. 

'Jingle Bells' was originally written for Thanksgiving and is about a sleigh ride in winter. 'Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!' is simply about enjoying a snowy day indoors. 'Frosty the Snowman' merely focuses on a snowman coming to life, not during Christmas. And let's not get started on 'Let's Go To Bed' by The Cure, with the line "laughing at the Christmas lights" - which does NOT make it a Christmas song!! Right, Bob?

Over the past decade I have been collecting my own motley assortment of Christmas songs - from the thoughtful to the thoughtless, from the moribund to the animated, White Christmasses, Blue Christmasses, Cold Christmasses - Christmas alone, Christmas together - songs about bad Christmas songs (I've written many) - slow ones, fast ones, some with a disco beat ... I tried to incorporate everything from all the songs I've listened to (enjoyed and despised) over the years.

The difficulty with writing seasonal songs is you have to make a start when the sun is shining, the temperature is high, and the last thing you can think of is wearing a warm, woolly jumper next to a roaring log fire. I usually get my best ideas just after Christmas, but by then I've had enough of snow, and mistletoe (watch out for this rhyme folks!!) and my enthusiasm is shelved until August or September.

Follow this blog to read, day by day, song by song, what each one means to me and with a little insight as to the hows and whys and my thought process. These 24 songs form a small part of my Christmas output over the years ... I may be prolific but I have very little regard for quality control. Music is fun, don't be scared, it won't hurt! These are just the ones I thought you, dear listener, may enjoy the most.

I may never achieve a 'Christmas Number One' (and my ode to Christmas not being Christmas without Cliff has long-since fallen by the wayside despite being in the running against the Rage Against The Machine Facebook campaign to keep Simon Cowell from #1 all those years ago), but no can ever accuse me of not trying! 

So here comes my Advent calendar of Christmas songs - all re-visited, re-recorded, re-thought out and presented in the best format I could (which is to say, with tongue firmly in cheek and one eye on that guiding light blazing across the night sky, looking for the man at midnight).

The Advent Calendar (Countdown to Christmas)

Merry Christmas!