Christmas music, whether you love it or hate it, has a power over us we can't control, and science can back it up. Musicologist Joe Bennett at the Berklee College of Music in Boston has done a brief analysis on how we can define what a contemporary Christmas song even is, and the patterns and themes that seem to hit us at the heart. What makes "White Christmas" tick? Joe has a guitar and the answer.

Olly Robertson, a research assistant in The Oxford Psychological Interventions for Children and Adolescents research group at University of Oxford, meanwhile has written about the science of Christmas cheer, and why things like mistletoe, the Christmas tree, and of course the music have such an emotional impact.