Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I think that Christmas songs are on the verge of extinction. Nat King Cole has been roasting chestnuts since 1946 and Wham started singing about last Christmas nearly 30 years ago. I can think of very few recent additions to the catalogue though I might have missed some; my radio stations of choice don’t play much music released in this century.
I did sometimes listen to my son’s student radio show even though it featured genres of music that are named after buildings. You know – house, garage, garden shed. I was pleasantly surprised when, one December morning, I tuned in from Hong Kong to hear him playing seasonal music and encouraging listeners to phone in with requests.
Chris Rea’s Driving Home for Christmas was a popular choice and it is a great song, evoking the anticipation of travelling home on a snowy Christmas Eve. My son claimed it was his favourite and, under the influence of some strange maternal force, I felt compelled to tell his audience that for much of his childhood he preferred another.
There is plenty of advice available about what you shouldn’t do to your children and I guess that phoning in to your son’s radio show to share with the world that he loved Mistletoe and Wine by Cliff Richard falls under the heading “How to ruin your teenager’s street cred and permanently damage his self-esteem”. Perhaps I ought to have mentioned it was before he started nursery school.
You may see my action as a mistake but I think of it as a selfless act for which he ought to thank me. Our children want to be better than us and it’s our duty to help them achieve their goals. I should be applauded for not setting the parenting bar too high.
