Christmas songs - a challenge...

I'm a big fan of the fabulous guilty pleasure that is Christmas music.

After listening to avant garde, up and coming tracks all year, I can’t resist revelling in the artificial glow of commercialism that accompanies the Christmas song.

It’s at this time of years that I really miss Top of the Pops, with its celebration of our deathless fascination with sad-sack has-beens and their mawkish Yuletide power-ballads.

I want to join with the nation and pay homage to the bad cover versions, novelty songs and general rubbish that get wheeled out year after year.

Admittedly I’m so confused by the dazzling yuletide onslaught of bright colours, sherry and state-enforced cheer, I simply haven't the energy to resist.

And of course I don’t really wish it could be Christmas every day – with no shops open, candlelight and entire families crowded into one room for weeks on end, it would quickly feel more like post-Aplcalypse starkness than a positive lifestyle choice. Add in bottled water and gasmasks and it would really bring the mood down.

But Wizard aside, for the next couple of weeks I want to pay homage to Christmas and its glorious seasonal excess. For the Christmas single is, in many ways, pop at its purest.

The curmudgeons amongst you may argue the small handful of songs in the classic Christmas pop canon have long been so familiar that they have bred contempt, but the first few mournful piano notes of Fairytale of New York and I’m in the drunk tank, fired up and singing.

The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s superb offering is 20 this year, and in my opinion remains the greatest Christmas song ever, especially the section where Shane MacGowan and Kirsty exchange hobo greetings:

"You're a bum, You're a punk, You're an old slut on junk".

You can keep your partridge in a pear tree. That’s true love for you.

So, full of the Christmas spirit, I challenged some of my favourite Merseyside bands to write me a bit about their favourite Christmas song, and in exchange I've passed their Christmas wishes on to Santa. I'll put one up each day in the run up to Christmas. Please do leave your comments and your own favourites (plus any Christmas wishes).

Ho ho ho and Merry Christmas! xx