The world's only government department for Christmas carols has opened its doors in Austria.
Staff at the office in Graz catalogue festive music from around the world - and teach people how to sing it properly.
It even includes a helpdesk - manned by trained musicians familiar with thousands of carols and Christmas tunes - where members of the public can phone in to hum a forgotten favourite.
"Many of the callers are people trying to track down a song from their childhood but they can only remember a line or two or part of the melody," explained a spokesman.
"But using the experience of our experts, we can track down most carols or songs," they added.
The carol hunters use a reference library of 1,000 song books cataloguing more than 50,000 songs covering everything from traditional tunes like 'Oh Tannenbaum' to 'Last Christmas' by George Michael's Wham.
The service - funded by the regional government - is also available over the internet.
Director Eva-Maria Hois said: "We are getting calls from all over the world. There is a real demand for our service."



















Leave a comment