I finish this series with that most English (and most secular) of Christmas traditions, the wassail. It's such an integral part of Christmas that Dictionary.com made wassail its word of the day for December 24.

Here's a recipe for wassail I googled earlier.

So as Christmastide rolls on towards New Year, here is my Wassailing playlist - mostly traditional wassailing songs, and finished off with a delightful Christmas single from 1992 which sounds like it was the outcome of too much wassailing.

1. "The Yorkshire Wassail" - Theatre of Voices/Paul Hillier
2. "Here We Come A-Wassailing" - Theatre of Voices/Paul Hillier
3. "A wassail, a wassail, all through this town" - Theatre of Voices/Paul Hillier
4. "Gloucestershire Wassail" (instrumental)
5. "Can wassel" - Anonymous 4
6. "Somerset Wassail" - The Cambridge Singers/John Rutter
7. "Malpas Wassail" - The Revels Chorus
8. "What A Wonderful World" - Nick Cave and Shane McGowan