httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6YbLZf8i5I

Thus it was that with 1973′s trial run for the Winter Of Discontent hovering on the horizon, the man in the mirrored top hat decided he was having non of yer namby pamby glumness and with the aid of an old unfinished Slade song, an Harmonium borrowed from John Lennon, and some raucous shouting from the corridor outside the recording studio, crafted TV Cream’s Official Favourite Christmas Single Of All Time. With its you’re-going-to-Church-instead-of-playing-with-Stop-Boris opening, Glam Rock-refracted take on time-honoured Christmas preparations, droll Peter Kay-trouncing observations on having your relatives round for dinner, and ludicrously crowbarred-in pun on the band’s name, it’s more or less a three minute musical encapsulation of Christmas Like It Used To Be In The Cream Era, when cheap-and-cheerful crackers jostled for emblematic status with garish Glam-esque decorations, ITV sitcom specials, and Rowntree Macintosh selection boxes with those big chunky stylised snowmen and spiral-eyed reindeer on the front. As Cream-era clarion calls go, they don’t come much more iconic – or indeed much louder – than Noddy Holder bellowing “IT’S CHRIIIIIIIIST-MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS”. And, frankly, it never really is Christmas until you’ve heard it.