︎

Christmas Jumper Night 2023 Playlist


Treasa Nealon


Songs heard over the shouting, laughing and drunken rambling on Christmas Jumper Night as I anxiously huff a cigarette stolen from my friend in the beer garden and carefully try not to singe a hole into Grinch onesies and other clothing depicting Santa in several uninterpretable activities:

  • The Season of the Sticks by Noah Kahn (a song I only heard a week ago as I said to my younger sister who then exclaimed ‘where have you been!?’).

  • A remix of Love Story by Taylor Swift as I have a stilted conversation with someone I went to school with and haven’t talked to since. They are home from Australia for the Christmas because that is where everyone I know lives now.

  • Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You as I snuff the butt out on an ashtray and contemplate pushing through the crowds to find my friends or even better – a double Jameson and ginger.

Songs heard as I wait at the bar and get elbowed thrice in the back by someone who then gets thick at someone else who has elbowed them in the back (I decide to order a Baby Guiness with that Jameson):

  • Fairytale of New York by Kristy McCall and Shane McGowan ‘and isn’t it awful sad they are both dead now? What’s it all about?’ I say to no-one as I watch a young fella twist a girl wearing antlers on her head under his arm.

  • This is the Life by Amy MacDonald but it’s a cover version by some new up and coming Irish folk band consisting of seven men and a tin whistler. I Google the name Robert Riger because it’s mentioned in the song and learn that he was someone successful who is dead now.

  • Canter by Gerry Cinnamon as the harried barman takes my order. I worry that he’ll hate me a little for ordering a Baby Guiness but decide that the person being pulled ungracefully down from where they attempted to stand on top of the bar is more of an annoyance then I am.

  • Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond as I knock the shot back.

Songs heard as I carefully juggle my drink and myself through a group of people blocking a doorway and decide to tell my friends ‘fuck this, I’m going home’:

  • Last Christmas by Wham! ‘and George Michael is dead too’ I say to the man who runs the local gym and who has never spoken to me in my life as he sings at me about breaking his heart 12 months ago. He thinks I am singing along with him.

Songs heard as I text my friends ‘fuck this, I’m going home’ and leave the pub:

  • The intro to Never Forget by Take That and I am half tempted to turn back but I don’t. Instead I walk home, past the chipper filled with snowmen eating chips and under the twinkling Christmas lights.

Songs heard as I debate whether or not to get a four in one (with crispy chicken and satay sauce) in the Chinese but decide the queue is not worth it:

  • Three young men drunkenly singing what sounds like Fairytale of New York. Two of them are off-key and the other has forgotten the words. When they are done one of them turns to us all and says, ‘Isn’t it awful sad they are both dead now? What’s it all about?’