For enthusiasts of Trivia and Pub Quizzes, please check the last section of this Blog on the song.

We’ve just a couple of weeks left to the end of term, and all 3 schools are all set for the season, with trees, ivy, lights and decorations everywhere, and probably ‘Songbird Supreme’, Mariah Carey’s dulcet tones reminding us that Christmas is much more about people rather than presents. What’s worth our children knowing is that Maria Carey writes almost all of her songs herself, starting during junior school, and that writing has captured her a handsome net worth of  $225 million. I guess that might make her children, twin girls, Moroccan and Monroe, a bit more ambitious for their gifts than the rest of us.  

Clearly, our young family members won’t have those kinds of expectations, nor perhaps have ‘Oompah and Granny’ top buyers on their list of prezzies wanted. What’s more important, as the lyrics go, is wanting the humans there in the mix. Coming together across the ‘break’ certainly works for Family Wilding, though perhaps by the close of ‘Twelfth Night’, it’s time to move on for us all.

ClairesCourtTV features this week the topic “Surviving Christmas. As families around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas by decorating their homes, singing carols, buying gifts and planning feasts, often the true meaning of Christmas can be lost due to the commercial exploitation of this time of year. Many people see it as a joyous occasion to spend with family and friends, but for others, it is viewed as a stressful and challenging time attributed to a combination of factors such as financial pressures, relationship issues, and, quite often, loneliness.

Perhaps more importantly for parents is to set sufficient boundaries around their children’s access to social media, and best of all, keep them in the real world rather than alone in the digital space, where virtual friends are certainly not always the best influence, or even actually known! Mariah’s early life was spent largely with her mother. Although Carey looked forward to Christmas every year, she said in 2019 that her “dysfunctional family” and financial struggles in childhood often overshadowed her excitement. “I always wanted to have a really good time at Christmas, and they would ruin it, so I vowed in my own life I would make sure every Christmas was great.”  She says it’s these struggles that gave her the encouragement to write, to express herself and find her true voice. 

There are so many traditions at this time that are really worth observing across the family. I feel very sorry for the population of Denmark that at the end of this year, it is closing down its Postal Service at the end of December, so presumably the few left who choose to send Christmas cards have this as their last opportunity. Here in the UK, it seems we share 1 billion each year, with 150 million posted through the Royal Mail. How on earth do Danish children send their ‘thank you’ letters?

The physical act of writing on paper is now understood to be one of the key features of successful learning, with the latest research highlighting that screen-based memory decays so quickly that the average writer can’t remember what they typed 10 lines previously. However painful it is, helping children write their own lists, cards and letters, as well as to develop their personal signature, does every youngster the greatest service. 

Staying smartphone-free is a great ambition for our youngest, and readers may have already heard of the move in Australia from next week (10 December) to ban anyone under 16 from keeping or making accounts on social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, X, Facebook and more. Prohibition in isolation of course, never works, so nations that go down this route need to provide suitable alternatives. Just as England has been moving up in terms of its literacy and numeracy skills, Sweden’s overfocus on e-learning has seen parents and teachers really worry about their children’s inability to focus and work in school successfully.  

As a consequence, Sweden is reintroducing printed textbooks and handwriting in schools to address this declining student literacy and concentration, reversing a previous trend of relying heavily on screens & devices. The government has invested millions of euros to buy new textbooks and is encouraging less screen time, particularly for young children, citing concerns that digital tools have led to reduced focus, comprehension issues, and a decline in basic skills.

Here in the UK, as well as in the USA, austerity in state school budgets is giving rise to similar concerns, with the literacy divide becoming more acute between the various socioeconomic layers, where access to physical books differs significantly. Ultimately, the signs are really clear; as adults, we must model, as best we can, reading and writing, thinking and expressing our views to each other, because that, it turns out, is how children acquire the skills they need best of all.

Back in 1967 or thereabouts, when brother Hugh and I were writing our lists for Father Christmas, or Dad kept us guessing about the ‘8 legs he had bought for the family present. He had taught my brother and me how to play snooker at the various hotels we stayed in over the summers. When he asked us to hop in the Commer Van we used for transporting us boarders between Ridgeway to collect said gift, we were certain that we were to collect our hearts’ desire. Instead of a showroom, we turned up at a kennels, and picked up 2 black poodles, Claude and Eustace, the first school dogs to join our community.

And finally, this Wednesday evening the sailing squad ran their annual fund-raising winter-warmer and wreath-making at the Senior Boys’ school. Over 2 hours, the parents transformed from willing amateurs to gifted professionals, as the closing snapshot below of their work reveals. 

P.S. If anyone wants to buy said Sailng Squad one extra of the additional fireflies they need for national team racing, they can check that out in Santa’s basket here – https://ovingtonboats.com/firefly 

Trivia

Written in 1994 with Walter Afanasieff, her record producer,  and released on her album, “Merry Christmas”, these days Mariah’s dulcet tunes are to be found universally around the shopping centres and favourite seasonal downloads. For those shortly to take part in Pub Quizzes, the other key bits of information are:

• The song was released in 1994 but didn’t reach the top spot in the UK until 2020 and in the US in 2019, after 25 and 26 years respectively, 70 weeks in the UK Top 100 and 16 weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
• Billboard No. 1 of the Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs—ahead of legendary vocalists like Bing Crosby, Brenda Lee, and Nat King Cole.
• Mariah Carey wrote 18 of the 19 songs listed by Billboard, and she holds the record for the most cumulative weeks spent at number one as a songwriter.
• It’s the song that just keeps giving, annual royalties an estimated $2.5-$3 million.
• YouTube downloads to date (Noon, Thursday 4/12/2025) are 805,582,218.