Noel "hopes the excesses of Christmas are passing us by". That would include the surely-out-of-character No Deal of a few days back, then? No? Thought not.

Great opening round, and we get a little bit of comedy at the opening offer, as well we might. First hit comes just before the break, followed swiftly by another. More comedy, and the £2,009 offer comes out. We didn't get a £2,009 opening offer on January 1 this year, did we? Or did we?

"What is going on?" Three Power 5 hits in a row. An orange and a tiny blue will help things out. Has there really been a tiny sealed red box hidden inside the table all along? Did you see it, H?!? Anyway, there's more in this game for now.

Dear Banker. This is not a Scrooge v Santa game, there is no issue of 'lying', and the ADP is at eight-box, not five.

Oh.

One of the best Banker performances of all time, that, and he deserves an OBW for it... but she only goes and destroys the board to leave the Igor finish! A feel-good ending to 2009! Personally, I'd rather have had a camping holiday than a trip to Mexico, but would have gone on regardless.

No, but in amongst all the other stuff, I did see a 4-gang extension socket (presumably used by the cleaners when they do their hoovering). I thought I'd share that with everyone.

Thank goodness we had a cautious player today because most players would have crashed and burned from 8 box to 5 box and possibly from 5 box to 2 box.

A TPW win to end the year (and if I was feeling generous and assumed the holiday was worth more than £1,026 - then I suppose it could be classed as an OPW).

Nice way to finish the year!

Lovely lady (who's at my age, hint, hint) and a great game to end the year

Abbie's just abvout young enough to be my daughter, but hey that never stopped the Banker

Very enjoyable game to round off the year. Abbie was very bubbly and funny, and looked absolutely gorgeous in that orange dress. Like most people i felt she'd dealt too soon but i was absolutely thrilled for her when she went on to demolish the board.
I do wonder - if she hadn't found the £75k at the last minute would we have had a Banker's Gamble to finish the year off? I think we might have done.

I've no idea how much a holiday for 2 to Mexico actually costs - maybe i should go to Icelolly.com t find out? - but i'm going to class that as an OPW

I've never been to icelolly.com but I thought I'd have a look, and the first thing I noticed was that its strapline at the top of my browser is "cheap holiday offers".

Their holidays seem to mostly be under £1,000, even for a 2-week all-inclusive holiday to Mexico or the Dominian Republic in March (for example). I'm not sure if that's for 2 people though.

This was the game I've been waiting 28 shows to see

A great result for Abbie in the end, because it could've been so much worse for her. I expect most people would've gone on at 8-box and perhaps all the way to the end, so the cautious deal worked wonders.

It's not going to be the same without her on the wings. Hottest contestant I've ever seen anyway! I think they should add a 23rd box and just have Abbie standing behind it for every show

Assuming she went sometime in the next couple of months, I did a search for an all-inclusive, 7 day holiday and it's between £400-£1800 per person depending on resort and class of hotel.

Gorgeous lass and really nice too. Well done, Abbie. Good luck for the future.