Advent Calender of Christmas Memories - Day 3 - Christmas Music

This series of blog posts has been inspired by Geneabloggers Advent Calendar to share memories for others in the future.

Music is something that really makes me tick and being able to sing, play clarinet and join in generally at Christmas is really important to me.

These are some of my favourite Christmas pop songs:

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(Image link: www.wikipedia.org, Author: Ecallow,  9 Dec 2012)

• Fairytale of New York by The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl
• Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid
• All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey
• White Christmas by Bing Crosby
• Happy Christmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon
• Driving Home for Christmas by The Christmas Party Singers
• I'm Walking In The Air (from the Snowman) by Howard Blake

My favourite carols are:

• Oh Holy Night by Adolphe Adam
• Song of Solomon by Martin Smith
• O Come O Ye Faithful by John Frances Wade
• In The Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rossetti
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by William B. Sandys

Most of my favourite songs are favourites due to significant memories of Christmas's past, for example, last Christmas Martin Smith's new song, Song of Solomon really spoke to me and was also just so beautiful that it brought back memories of last Christmas. 

A lot of the favourite pop songs are from memories of Christmas school discos and parties, and the songs remind me of happy times with good friends and family.

Image link (www.sweetclipart.com, Liz Aragon, 26 Sept 2011)

I love going to church at Christmas and joining in with the music by singing or playing my clarinet and my favourite carols are usually as I can sing them well or know a good harmony as well as being really beautiful pieces of music.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is a personal favourite as it brings back memories of Christmas's with my grandad. At church on Christmas day they often got all the men on the stage to sing this song together and my grandfather loved to join in with great gusto, but he would carry on humming it for the rest of the day usually.

I remember playing the whole Snowman movie music with my school orchestra and I grew to love it, especially the song I'm Walking In The Air.

I have fond memories of listening to lots of German Christmas carols which my mother still has on cassette tapes. It was these tapes which we listened to whilst writing our cards and putting up our tree and decorations.

I am looking forward to my work Christmas party at the end of this week, where I am hoping to get up and dance to some of these favourite Christmas tunes, as well as go to lots of church services and join in the singing as much as I can.

What about YOU, what is your favourite Christmas music and songs? And why?