Merry Christmas from Eurogamer!

Eurogamer is pleased to announce that we're all buggering off for a week to eat Jaffa Cakes and play computer games away from your vicious faces. Fortunately this happened to coincide with Christmas.

Not that we'll be leaving you completely unfulfilled, as you'll see a few reviews go up, and of course there's the small matter of Eurogamer's Top 50 Games of 2006 still to come. Watch out for that next week, including all the traditional sniping at one another.

Anyway, we hope you have a good one, whatever you celebrate, and we look forward to seeing you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on 2nd January when we officially return.

Then we'll have the Reader Top 50 voting, our Picks Of 2007, and all sorts of drama and excitement that they won't tell me about because they know I'll get drunk and talk about it on message boards. Ta ra!

Oh go on then, one last treat. The Night Before Christmas, butchered by my own fat hand:

'Twas three days before Christmas and all through the lounge,
Big swearwords were spoken including, "you flange,"

The Wii was plugged in by the TV with care,
And the sensor bar worked despite Christmas tree glare,

The Xbox 360 was loading my garden,
While volume was amped thanks to Harman and Kardon,

But others denied that my dragon was ace,
At which point I viciously smashed up their face,

So then we did turn to the PlayStation 3,
But found the games lacking in depth and in glee,

Drawing a close to our lounging affair,
We then turned the thing off and ascended the stair,

When to what should my wondering eyes then affix?
But a massive great dog eating Memory Sticks,

"It's been in my room and this time I will kill it,"
I told my friend Ally as he pondered my mullet,

"Whatever you do he said get a good haircut,
And I'll go off to Tandy and see what they've there got,

"In the way of devices sufficient for storage,
Of Viva Pinata TV spots for trainage,"

"Never mind that," I then found myself saying,
"It's Christmas and that, so we shouldn't be paying,

"Instead we'll just take the DS on the train,
And with Phoenix our guide, objections will rain,

"And merry our Christmas will certainly be,
Providing we've transferred the Santa Claus Mii,"

"I've got it right here in my bag," said friend Ally,
"So why not let's go and get mashed on some sherry?"

"That sounds quite good yes but let's turn and wish cheer,
To the readers and theirs and be very sincere,

"Because they are the reason that I have a job,
And they've read on this far so they may care a lot,"

"Nah screw 'em," said Ally, betraying his purpose,
As Scrooge in this mangled and endlessly sh*t verse,

"Because next week they'll hate you for the Top 50 Games list,
When all you did really was write things down while pissed,"

"Perhaps so," I mused, as a means of distraction,
For Wii-strap adjustment behind-the-back action,

Then swinging the Wiimote around as he glowered,
I riddled his face as he presently cowered,

Announcing the following logic with praise,
Because our readers are ace and are always ablaze,

With opinions informed both with logic and reason,
And so I shall say as we exit the season:

"Go off now and get to the wrapping of bits,
But come back here next week and give us more hits."

Merry Christmas, everyone!