Last night was the annual Carols in the Domain in Sydney. I was going to go in person but ended up watching the TV broadcast from home because this weekend I seem to have become a nigel-no-mates as everyone has gone out of town for the holiday.

The carols, the show, the broadcast, etc was really well done and ran without a glitch. However, the one comment that everyone was making on twitter, and driving me nuts, was the over the top product placement.

These days you expect ads and sponsorship at events. However, what I don’t expect is Jack Black singing an altered version of Little Drummer Boy with lyrics advertising his latest movie flop, or a group of children emailing Santa via a Samsung Galaxy Tab through Telstra which the kids informing us Telstra gives us a little more giftness.

These two examples were probably the worst of it, but every time one of the MCs spoke they name dropped a sponsor be it Woolworths, MLC, NSW Government, etc.

Maybe my blogging and moaning about it the following day shows that the advertising worked, I remember the names and I have been no so subliminally informed about them. But once upon a time Christmas wasn’t just all about commercialism, especially carols!

Then again the modern revival of Santa Claus was sparked by Coca Cola so maybe advertising really is the reason for the season.

On a lighter note the start of the show right on sunset shows the size of the crowd and parts of the beautiful city I live in: