This is the most thrilling bit. Youre bathed and ready, resplendent in your new pyjamas and dressing gown. The house is all aglow with radiance and cosiness. Youve left out carrots for Rudolph and, with strange encouragement from your dad, a really large glass of whisky for Santa. Then when you dance up the stairs and fling yourself into your bed, you jump up and gawk dreamily out of the window to the heavens. Any glimpse of movement in the air and you jabber that youve just seen Santa high-tailing it to your house in his sleigh and you better get to sleep sharpish. And depending on your family tradition, this is when your parents would read out 'A Visit From St Nicholas' by Clement Clarke Moore. The quintessential Christmas verse for any eager young bairn on Christmas Eve. Its magical and evocative and youd invariably drift off into a blissful slumber. This is markedly different to Christmas Eve as an adult. If you havent guzzled the remainder of your bank account in your dangerously-packed local, youre still grafting away in the kitchen preparing for a day of unadulterated hell. A stress-induced heart attack from panicking about an inedible Christmas lunch or crying into your pint because youre staggeringly broke? Whichever way you look at it, it seems the Christmas magic from your childhood is well and truly dead.