Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hits Chriiiiistmaaas
Youngsters snub carols in favour of festive pop songs
CHRISTMAS carols face a bleak midwinter as a study shows they are falling out of favour among young people.
More than half of 18 to 29year-olds (57%) choose to put on a classic festive pop song – like Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody – compared to just 51% who like to listen to carols.
Meanwhile 46% say they have never sung a traditional carol and 43% find them outdated. Around a third have never sung the likes of Silent Night, Good King Wenceslas, Little Donkey or In the Bleak Midwinter.
And a third of people of all ages cannot remember the last time they went to a carol concert, while a fifth say they rarely listen to carols.
The poll of 2,000 people also found other Christmas traditions are falling in popularity.
Almost half (47%) say going to midnight mass is a thing of the past, as is attending a service on Christmas Day (43%), reading A Christmas Carol (41%), and finding an orange in their stocking (40%).
Jean-francois Bessiron, vice president of Groupon – behind the poll, said: “There are other things we can all be doing to celebrate the occasion and start our own new traditions.”