Well, I thoroughly enjoyed that. The food was good, the company was good and the presents were good too.

The Higgs residence was the preferred venue this year, so both sides of the family descended upon our house yesterday. I was enthusiastically woken by Sister One at 9am (unusually early for her, ever) and we swapped family presents. I was most impressed - three good books, a case for the laptop, some music, a couple of novelty items and some money to spend in the Bullring.

Although people moan about getting useless presents, I have genuinely strong vendetta against these items and get angry when I am given something that I know will just be thrown out, and even more angry if the person who bought it knows it too. Although it seems to counter the spirit of things, I would rather have the money, or nothing at all. My motivation lies purely in the amount of waste generated by crappy little gifts that are bought for the sake of buying and unfortunately are a total waste of the world's resources. Especially cheap injection moulded novelties. I'm not kidding about how annoyed I get - especially when I know that there is always something meaningful or useful you can buy if you think/look hard enough. Damn you Victor Papanek for putting me on a high horse.

Thankfully my relatives exercised a good level of thought this year, and there was very little that irritated me; infact I was really pleased with the crop, and I think everyone I bought for was too. Sister Two probably got me the most interesting/unexpected gift - a Fratelli's limited edition vinyl that alighted both my musical and design interest (see photo).

Of course the main bulk of the day was dedicated to over indulgence and there was a cornucopia of food and drink. Buy 4pm the only think between me and the land of nod was two mugs of black coffee.

After everyone had gone there was the obligatory evening tv (mostly because by this stage, the extra weight of your internals has pinned you to the sofa) and we watched the Vicar of Dibley. I often think that programme gets overlooked in terms of comedy gold - I know I never used to give it full credit - but it's actually very, very good. Last night's episode was well worth the time.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out the intricacies of my life for the next week - with new year and a beckoning from London folks for me to make an appearance I'm thinking it's becoming all too complicated already...