The season has its Sting

Sting and his wife, Trudie, keep with tradition on Christmas Eve: They go to a local church, sing along to carols, then head back home to their English estate to open presents with their family.

But that kind of celebratory mood is absent on his latest album, “If On a Winter’s Night.”

It features the former Police frontman’s interpretations of traditional British songs, ranging from carols to lullabies, that somberly mark the winter season – definitely not the kind of music for that tree-trimming party.

“I wanted to present something slightly different,” says Sting (aka Gordon Sumner).

“There’s a fault with a lot of Christmas songs; they are a little bit triumphal: ‘Isn’t life wonderful, God’s in his heaven and I’m rich.’ They sort of forget a lot of people aren’t.”

Q: Had you rejected doing a traditional Christmas album in the past?

A: I don’t think there’s any need for me to do one of those kind of records. I think there are enough of them out there and my feeling toward the season is a little bit more ambiguous (laughs). … I wanted to achieve some sort of balance between that sense of traditional Christmas and being home and being warm and being cozy, and also the opposite of those things. A lot of people suffer.

Q: When the leaves start to fall and the snow comes, what do you start to think about?

A: At this particular time, preparing for the winter of one’s life. I’m 58. I’m not in the winter of my life but I’m definitely preparing for it, so it reminds you of your mortality, the short span of years we have on the planet, what to do with that, how to be useful, how to be meaningful.

Q: How does one prepare for that?

A: I don’t know yet (laughs). I think this kind of work for me, this kind of creative work, is my preparation. … All of the songs are kind of magical. All the stories have a kind of spooky, ghostly quality about them because I think winter’s the seasons of ghosts. … I like the season, I like it, I look forward to it, but at the same time, it has a scary aspect to it.

The birthday bunch

Musician John Mayall is 76. Actress Diane Ladd is 74. Musician Chuck Mangione is 69. Comedian Garry Shandling is 60. Director Joel Coen is 55. Actor-comedian Howie Mandel is 54. Actress Kim Delaney is 48. Actor Tom Sizemore is 48. Actor Andrew McCarthy is 47. Actor Don Cheadle is 45. Actress Gena Lee Nolin is 38. Actress Anna Faris is 33. Actor Lucas Black is 27.