There's a poster in the window of a card shop near iTowers that has a sketch of a pair of socks on it and the words "Just so you know, I have enough of these. Merry Christmas."

BOING!, the new Christmas show from Travelling Light and Bristol Old Vic, has a brilliant connection with its child audience. From the beginning, five-year-olds were absorbed and giggly. When the performers suggested they help catch a thrown teddy bear, whole rows stood up as one, determined to be ready.

From requests for Lego and leg warmers to a popcorn maker and a Puffle, letters to Santa are an art form in themselves. Clare Dwyer Hogg delves into the world of children's wishlists.

Voices of: James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Kevin Eldon

Cronenberg is the latest director to give Freud the movie treatment

Wizzard once wished it could be Christmas every day. Well this year, half their dream has come true

Wet nurse, guide – or a fox in the henhouse?

In some ways the Osborne/Brown technique is highly effective, conferring on elusive public figures a gravitas that ubiquity always undermines

Religious morality cuts across the grain of human nature It tends to ask us to deny things that are natural to us: restraint in sexual matters, fear of the body. In the humanist tradition, the way we think about flourishing lives has to be premised on facts about what it is to be human, rather than needing to pass some kind of purity test for an eternal afterlife. You can be a moral person by simply recognising the responsibility you owe to other people.

It has been said that when Christmas comes around each year only Santa Claus has greater circulation than John Rutter. He has been called "a musical Dickens", synonymous with the season of goodwill.

It was supposed to be a fun-filled day out for all the family in the run-up to Christmas.

Henning Mankell wraps up the detective's final case, plus new work from Ali Smith, Graham Swift, Joyce Carol Oates and a host of others looks set to make this a thrilling year for readers

Hundreds of travellers trapped by icy weather spent Christmas Day queuing for flights in Europe on Saturday after sleeping on camp beds overnight in Paris and Brussels airports.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said airport operator BAA had "very serious lessons" to learn from the chaos caused at Heathrow by this month's snowfall.