Christmas songs that will reduce your gas bills

It’s unlikely that Irving Berlin was pondering the energy price cap when he composed the seasonal standard ‘I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm’ in 1937. ‘I can’t remember a worse December, just watch those icicles form,’ he wrote, a sentiment many of us can surely relate to right now – but wait! ‘What do I care if icicles form,’ he continues. ‘I’ve got my love to keep me warm.’ Good for you, sir. Meanwhile, the rest of us are watching the digits ticking incessantly upward on our smart meter with the murderous fascination of a gun dog fixated on a fox hole. For the first time in my life, I’m actually hoping to get socks from Santa – and perhaps one of those natty woollen jumpers Shakin’ Stevens wore in the video for ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’.

Fortunately, no genre of music brings on a Ready Brek glow quite like Christmas music. Its magical orange forcefield will come in handy during a winter when turning on the central heating has become an act of financial Russian roulette. The cost of burning real fuel isn’t much better, which is terrifically bad news for the Christmas song, which essentially owes its very existence to its proximity to a roaring open fire.

The male protagonist in ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ – now the problematic pariah of seasonal songs by dint of the fella coming on like a predator patrolling a panic room – no longer has much of an argument on which to press his dubious case. ‘Listen to the fireplace roar,’ he murmurs. Really? Have you seen the fine for breaking the rules in a Smoke Control Area, not to mention the price of a tonne of house coal? It might be cold outside, Deano, but it’s positively freezing in here.