Aled Jones and Russell Watson had no problem choosing track list

Aled Jones and Russell Watson found it “pretty easy” to choose songs for their festive album.

The pair have joined forces on ‘Christmas with Aled and Russell' and had fun selecting modern festive songs to go alongside traditional carols on the record.

Aled said: “It was pretty easy actually. He does a list, I do list, the record company might come up with a few, invariably there’s tracks on both our lists that are the same.

“On this one we tried to mix things up a little bit, so not just Christmas carols, but Christmas songs, pop songs like ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’, and ‘It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas’, along with the stuff you’d expect us to do.”

Aled shot to fame when he was just 14 years old thanks to his cover version of ‘The Snowman’ theme ‘Walking in the Air’ and he admitted it has been “special” to sing the song with his friend because Russell has always made jokes about his association with the festive favourite.

He said: “I’d never sung it with anyone else before but I decided to do it with Russ because last five Christmases wherever he is he keeps sending me photos of himself with various sizes snowmen in department stores and he thinks that I laugh uncontrollably, bless him.

“It’s a special moment for me to sing it with him. It’s his first Christmas album, I’ve done loads of Christmas albums over the years. Being able to do this song with him is great.”

While Aled admitted he used to get “embarrassed” by the song, he’s now very proud of it.

Asked if he is tired of his association with the song and film, he said: “Not at all.

“Look, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that when I was at college I would get embarrassed by it. But now I’m at an age where I look back on it fondly. Goodness me, it opened so many doors for me.”