A shop in York has banned cheesy Christmas songs for the sake of staff morale, the owners have said.

Neither Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You nor Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody will be played this year at York Gin because having to endure such music for hours each day would ruin Christmas for shop-floor employees, the shop’s director said.

Emma Godivala said the move would be welcomed by shoppers tired of the constant festive playlist pumped through the speaker systems of many high street shops from mid-November.

Her shop, which is in a 16th-century Tudor building in the heart of historic York, did not suit modern music, she said.

“We do love Christmas, but we want our gin shop to be a cheese-free zone. We’ve tested lots of songs to see which sound OK and which sound weird. And there’s a cut-off in the 1960s. Anything after that has been banned.

“Our lovely team are happy with the decision. They say lots of other shop staff are already going stir crazy with the same Christmas hits being played on a loop. That said, if Mariah appeared in the shop, we might just overturn the ban for a while and play All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

Instead the shop will play Christmas carols, music from seasonal ballets such as The Nutcracker and classics from Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.

Sandie Tanner-Smith, the shop’s manager, said: “We’re confident we’ll have the happiest staff and customers around. Our playlist is big enough to make sure no one hears the same Christmas song more than twice in a week.”



