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British Christmas Music: An Acquired Taste?

Sleighbells ring, my ears are bleeding

Steffany Ritchie
4 min readDec 18, 2021
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Living in the UK for many years now, I have come to love (and loathe) some of its Christmas music.

The British songs I was most familiar with when I moved here included Wham’s “Last Christmas” (classic) and “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney (unnerving how much of an earworm this becomes).

“Step into Christmas” by Elton John, which is quite terrible (but also much more fun than the one he has just put out with Ed “Snoozefest” Sheeran) is also permanently embedded in my brain, possibly thanks to a few Christmases in retail.

As an American, I admit I was unfamiliar and genuinely surprised at just how many uniquely British festive tunes there are.

Ah, the blessed days when I had never heard of Cliff Richard! For the uninitiated, Cliff, or Sir Cliff as his friends call him, is a British pop sensation from the 60s who they trot out most every Christmas to have a swing at a Christmas number one.

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Steffany Ritchie
Steffany Ritchie

Written by Steffany Ritchie

Nicheless. American in Scotland. Publisher of "Cancer Sucks, So Let's Talk About it More"

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