Christmas music, of a kind

There’s music that I oddly associate with Christmas as much as Deck the Halls and Jingle Bell Rock. ‘Oddly’, because the music in question has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas really, except in my memory.

I’m referring to seminal records that I received as Christmas gifts in my youth. Records I now can’t help but associate with Christmas (fondly). It was usually one album per Christmas, two in exceptional years.

After Christmas breakfast, I spent most of the rest of the day, and most of the rest of the Christmas holidays, playing the LPs over and over again until, by the time school started again, the records were as familiar to me and worn out as discs that had been in my fledgling but cherished collection for years.

(There’s something special about albums bought or received in my youth. They were few and far between and so very carefully chosen. Downloading the entire back catalogue of a given artist over P2P is just not the same thing. So I’m told, anyway.)

Maurizio’s Christmas favourites: Let it Be - The Beatles, ‘77 - Talking Heads, In Through the Out Door - Led Zeppelin and that perennial Yuletide chestnut, London Calling - The Clash.