[Stu]

I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year. It's always my favorite time of year anyway but I feel I'm in a much better head space to fully appreciate every nuance of it this time. It's going to be a total bum out come January [personified in my head eternally as being an ugly court jester prancing around going "Oh come on guys cheer up it's me, January!"].

I love getting drunk with my relatives because they're all like me split in different ways. I'm like a family 'best of' compilation which is a terrifying burden to have to carry but the drink always lets good conversation flow and I find I enjoy that all way more than getting drunk with my own friends who I increasingly feel older than with each passing second.

Christmas Eve I usually try and drink a bottle of blue Aftershock whilst crying like a ****** over Fantastic Mr. Fox and Mouse Hunt. Then Die Hard. Everyone usually gets a call during Die Hard.

Christmas Day I've been too hungover to enjoy fully the last few years but this year I'm going to try not to do the dog on Christmas Eve night [even though it IS a better day] so I can ebb some festive thrills out of it. I don't do the presents thing anymore but this year I do have the English edition of Depeche Mode Monument coming out which is this collectors coffee table book big enough to knock out a child with that details the bands history etc. Should be great flicking through that over the drinking, accompanied by Christmas specials. Love them. Bottom is the best one, obviously.

New Years Eve is horrific. I think only emotional sadists and hipster mafias who always feel a big need to be 'out' get off on it. When 12:00 AM hits my brain goes in to this weird sort of EastEnders mode where I see everyone toasting each other in slow motion, Jools Holland's nasal circling the plughole of my mind, those kind of carol songs in the background like when someone gets whacked in the Christmas soaps ... it's a really surreal feeling. I will have had a great time all December, I'm really, really drunk and I know the first few months of the new year will be complete **** because they usually are.

It's got this weird anticlimax feeling to it if you're out and if you're in I don't think there is any worse a feeling than seeing everyone on TV or outside the window have a great time of it, no matter how much you claim to not care

Xmas 2013. Have a good one, mother****ers.