Ed's blog: Christmas is cancelled

Bad news, everyone. Despite numerous appeals to the European Court of Human Rights, I have been unable to gain an injunction against Christmas and the New Year, so we will all have to retire to our homes to sit around not working for the next fortnight or so. (Honestly, it's called the European Court of Human Rights – you'd think they'd know a thing or two about how to enforce my right to make others work.)

As ever when faced with unwanted periods of absence from our desks – our altars of sober, virtuous endeavour – we are making the best of things, and have commissioned enough content to keep even the liveliest Eurogamer reader occupied between now and Tuesday 4th January when normal business resumes.

Tomorrow's a relatively normal day for features – we have Christian's review of Telltale's new take on Back to the Future, Kristan's latest Download Games Roundup, and of course we couldn't let you go without publishing our long-awaited and thoroughly researched review of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

Then it's into our annual flood of festive nostalgia. 2010 has been an interesting year for games – perhaps more evolutionary than revolutionary, whatever Microsoft's marketing department might encourage you to think – but there have been plenty of high notes struck by a range of developers, and it's our pleasure to recount our favourite experiences. From Saturday onwards will be doing just that – and crowning our Eurogamer staff Game of the Year in the process. Ooh.

Meanwhile, Ellie will take us on a tour of this year's headlines and the important issues surrounding them, such as why Peter Molyneux films stuff for Lionhead.com in his back garden, and we've also invited some of our favourite developers to share their thoughts on the highlights of 2010. Somewhere in there, the mighty Digital Foundry will take a technical look back at 2010 as well, and of course we give you guys the last word: look out for the Eurogamer Readers' Top 50 Games of 2010 as we get closer to go-time for the next year.

Whatever you think of the year in gaming though, we've had a lovely time telling you about it and do hope you've enjoyed our company as well. I might not be wild about people taking time off, but obviously you deserve an exception – have fun and we'll see you in 2011.