All I want for Christmas is - royalties

It's forty years since Slade recorded Merry Christmas Everybody (...apologies to those who are made to feel old by that statement). And yet, it remains at the top of the charts of royalty-earning Christmas songs, making an amazing £800,000 each year - a nice little pension for the group!

The list of the top ten Christmas songs is published today in the Metro, with the amount that each has earned so far this year in royalties for radio, television, jukebox and shop plays as well as compilation album sales - and this is with two weeks still to go.

1. Slade – ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ £512,000
2. Pogues – Fairytale Of New York’ £386,270
3. Mariah Carey – ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ £347,615
4. Wham – ‘Last Christmas’ £301,622
5. Cliff Richard – ‘Mistletoe & Wine’ £98,408
6. Band Aid – ‘Do they Know It’s Christmas’ £78,030
7. Shakin’ Stevens – ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ £53,834
8. Pretenders – ’2000 Miles’ £45,344
9. East 17 – ‘Stay Another Day’ £30,219
10. John Lewie – ‘Stop The Calvary’ £13,258

And if the list makes you feel nostalgic for the Ghosts of Christmas Past, you can really indulge yourself as the report in the Metro contains links to the videos for all ten of them!

Here's a proposal for your Christmas lessons - start with some serious reading about the royalties to be earned at Christmas by songs and films that hit the jackpot, such as this item from Independent.ie, then challenge your students to name the top ten most played Christmas songs. Reveal the list above, and ask them to re-compose the words for one of the songs on the theme of whatever topic you are studying at the time.

And you could treat them to the videos as background while they are at it!