Category: Music

Advent activity #8

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Films, Music, TV and radio

I’m going to be very lenient in the overseeing of today’s job, which is “BUY DISNEY PLUS”. It’s a perfectly good plan if you live in a house where a lot of Disney is going to be watched over Christmas, and it’s an even better one if some of you are under ten and/or isolating. If those things are not true of your household then I am happy for you to interpret this activity in any way you choose, though it should probably be film-or TV-based if you definitely want to score the point.

(There is a free online screeing of Mogul Mowgli this evening for BFI members, which I have decided will count as my contribution.)

There must be a million Disney Christmas songs, mustn’t there? But I couldn’t think of any, and the ones I found when I googled were sickly sweet and/or featured children wearing make-up, so instead we will go to a Disney-adjacent IP (I mean, of course Disney own the Muppets, because they own everything, but they’re not DISNEY-Disney) for an almost-rendition of Shchedryk, or The Carol of the Bells as it’s better known in English.

(If you hate this version, here is a nicer one.)

Advent activity #7

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

GET STOCKINGS OUT is the job of the day for Monday, although whether that is a two-minute task or a two-hour one depends on how organised your house is. Don’t tell anyone, but I think we might skip stockings this year, because we’re trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary Stuff we have and it’s quite hard to fill a stocking with necessary Stuff. For more years of my life than I’m willing to own up to, though, I found opening the Christmas stocking the most thrilling part of the whole day, and I will still insist on chocolate coins and a satsuma before breakfast on Christmas Day, stocking or no stocking.

Also my stocking is really small, because it’s one that I think my paternal grandma made for me when I was tiny, and I don’t want anyone to think that the size of my stocking should be a limit on the size of what Santa brings me.

Luckily some people are far more selfless – for example, the little boy in this delight of a song, put out in the 1950s by US children’s record label Cricket, on vinyl that crackles like a log fire. Enjoy!

Advent activity #6

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Films, Music

If you are my eighty-five-year-old neighbour then you have already done this twice, because you weren’t convinced by your first effort, but if not then today is the day to MAKE CAKE. I think technically this probably means Christmas cake, but I will allow any type of cake, or – in extremis – toast. I’m able to make very little since our oven went kaput last week and the people aren’t coming to fix it until Tuesday, so I will be spending my Sunday decorating the tree (that was supposed to happen yesterday, but the lights have also gone kaput; I am not having a good time, electronically) and listening to proper old-fashioned Christmas Crooner music, beginning with Doris Day’s version of Winter Wonderland. Most non-recent Christmas songs don’t come with a video, but this one does and it’s extremely Christmassy, so do take three minutes out of your day to watch as well as listen.

Advent activity #5

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music, Theatre1 Comment

I’m going to let you interpret today’s instruction, GET NUTCRACKER, in whichever way you choose. Should you happen to own a decorative Christmas ornament in the shape of a toy soldier from the ballet then you will be able to hit the nail squarely on the head, but in the unlikely event that you don’t, you could:

  1. Get your actual honest-to-god nutcracker from the kitchen drawer and use it to crack some nuts
  2. Get the ballet on DVD, or stream it, or, from December 11, stream it live from the New York City Ballet
  3. Get coconut liqueur, cognac, lemon juce, triple sec, pineapple juice, some ice and a strong constitution and mix yourself this slightly terrifying-sounding drink

However you choose to celebrate Nutcracker Day, as December 5 will henceforth be known in our house, you must for sure begin by listening to Pentatonix, last seen gracing these pages two years ago with That’s Christmas To Me, perform this adorable version of the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy:

Advent activity #4

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Look, I do apologise, but Edie is a hard taskmaster and if, like me, you are getting your Christmas tree tomorrow then it really will help if you MAKE SPACE FOR CHRISTMAS TREE today, rather than waiting until there’s a great big Christmas tree in the way of everything. She may be six, but she’s smart.

My parents aren’t putting up a tree this year, because they aren’t having any visitors, so as a special one-off treat I am allowed to put their fairy, handmade by me in 1978, on top of my tree. More on that anon. For today I will follow the instructions and move the furniture in our front room kitchen sitting room dining room (they are all the same room) house around until I have made a space that will no doubt turn out tomorrow to be just a weeny bit too small.

Talk of Christmas trees means I can share with you one of my most thrilling recent Christmas music finds: Nat King Cole singing O Tannenbaum IN GERMAN. I don’t speak German, so I can’t tell how good his accent is, but his voice is so beautiful that it doesn’t matter.

Advent activity #3

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music4 Comments

Our instruction for December 3 is HOLLY WREATH, which coincidentally is also today’s real-life task in my house, where I have discovered that the wreath I made last year is a little worse for wear after a year under the stairs and needs refreshing: a visit to the closest florist awaits at lunchtime. This is the first place I’ve lived since I was a student where my front door faces the street, and so around this time last year I went to an evening class at the Old Brewery in Greenwich where I paid £10 to make my own wreath while consuming at least £10 worth of mince pies. There were various decorations on offer but the competition for the more traditional elements of a wreath was fierce and so I went off-piste and garnished my fir boughs with thistles, mistletoe and, well, peacock feathers.

My wreath, with peculiar outdoor security lighting

There’s no holly or ivy in this wreath, but I think I will add some ivy to it when I perk it up later, which I have decided gives me licence to make today’s song Annie Lennox’s glorious version of The Holly And The Ivy, from her even more glorious 2010 album A Christmas Cornucopia. If you could sing like that you’d never stop, would you?

Advent activity #2

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Today’s task is to SING CHRISTMAS SONGS, which since there are no carol services or singalongs this year we will all have to do at home, by ourselves, so I have chosen a song which everybody knows in order to give you no excuse not to join in. Yes, even you. I encourage you to consider this a mere jumping-off point, to be followed up immediately with your fullest and finest Christmas repertoire. You definitely know more Christmas songs than you think you do.

(You also definitely know fewer Christmas songs than I do, but that is because I have spent around <maths> thirty hours a year since 2008 on my musical advent calendar, which by my calculations gets me 3.9% of the way to Malcom Gladwell’s ten thousand hours and hence somewhere between “expert” and “Michael Gove” on the expert scale.)

Advent activity #1

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music3 Comments

We’re starting with a task that you have already accomplished just by being here:

DAY 1: START ADVENT CALENDAR. I have two real-life advent calendars this year; a Nicolas Cage one and a cheese one which has to be kept in the fridge door, taking up valuable Champagne space:

Totally worth it though:

I have already eaten the cheese as a mid-morning snack, which is why a cheese calendar is better than a beer calendar, because you can only really have beer for breakfast at the weekend. (There is a beer advent calendar in our house too but it’s not mine and it’s not pretty so I’m not including a photo.)

I looked for an advent-specific pop song to set us on our musical way but the only recent-ish one I could find was by R. Kelly, which didn’t seem to hit the right tone, so instead here is a lovely arrangement of a traditional song by Marty Haugen, whom Wikipedia describes as a “liturgical composer”, which sounds like a great job.

Advent Song for Christmas Eve: It’s Cliffmas!

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Climate, Music1 Comment

Of course this was always going to be today’s song, since it makes me happiest of all. I’m not even quite sure why, except I suppose that Cliff really means it and it shows, and it was Christmas number one the year I turned twelve, which was the year I listened to the most music of all, so it exerts a powerful nostalgic force on me whenever I hear it. But mostly it’s just the way he hits the gong and then launches into that extraordinary dance at 2.25.  I’ve tried to emulate it, but it has a magic all of its own which can’t be replicated.

The last bit of good news for this year – from me, at least – is this story about the first commercial electrically-powered aircraft test flight in Canada. In among the doom and gloom of what we’re doing to the planet, there do seem to be people with real ideas about ways to stop it, which, at least, is a small piece of hope. And if we can’t have a small piece of hope at Christmas, when can we? Now, turn Cliff up nice and loud and let’s all dance.

Advent Song for December 23: I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Wouldn’t that be a nice way to spend the year? I love this song and it gets ranked above Slade because the video is so much fun, with its brass band and collection of small children (who must, I suppose, be in their fifties now) with only the very faintest idea what they’re doing there.

There is a prize if you guess tomorrow’s song! In the meantime, enjoy this news about a stick library for dogs. It’s literally as good as that sounds.