_{Tired of the same jolly jingles on loop every year in the run-up to Christmas? You're not alone.}

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You've spotted yarns of tinsel creeping onto the shelves of your local supermarket since August and 'Fairytale of New York' is blasting through the speakers of your favourite pub...and it's not even December. I personally would love to make it a calendar year without the tired and tested 'I WISH IT COULD BE CHRISTMAS EVERYDAAAAY' entering my earline. And let's spare a thought for anyone working in hospitality over this season who will go to bed with 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer' ringing through their nightmares until January.

A recent report shows that 23% of shoppers dread hearing the same Christmas music, yet we're destined to listen to the same holly jolly Christmas songs since childhood because it's (sing it with me now) the most nostalgic time of the year. According to a case study from Psychology Today, the omniscient presence of the same festive refrains on our radios, in our shops and any space we step into outside the home, has all the ingredients to make give us the Christmas ick; "Even songs we really like can become aversive when repeating in our heads. If the song keeps repeating in our heads and if it feels like we have no control over it, then that song starts to feel intrusive. And this is why can we come to hate holiday music."

For a commercial setting, we recommend playing Christmas-adjacent tracks and your more 'on the nose' festive songs alongside current roster of tunes through a strategic shuffle and keeping some of the intrusive earworms on the naughty list and off your playlist.

With that in mind, it's time to cue up a Christmas playlist that’s actually worth celebrating - without the sacrificial 'All I Want for Christmas' lamb. That’s right, 'Mistletoe and Wine' is out. Wizard be banished. In the name of all that is holy (night), deck the halls and rock around the tree to the great Christmas Switch playlist - packed with gifts from Julian Casablancas, Otis Redding, Camera Obscura, Wolf Alice and many more.

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