One expects Shakespeare to be rediscovered afresh on the British stage (if not here, where?), and it was gratifying during 2010 to find the Royal Court - a venue all about the new - raising the authorial bar ever higher via an (almost) unbroken series of triumphs culminating, for me, with E V Crowe's Kin.

Vienna has its New Year's Day concert, conducted this year with some style but not quite enough sensuousness by Franz Welser-Möst. London could do worse for a more modest equivalent than let the Wooden O play host to a well-spiced small package of carols, seasonal songs and readings from Chaucer's times to Thomas Hardy's. But sing and play it lustily, ye Gabrieli ladies and gentlemen, or not at all. And it's sad to report that the proceedings got off to a start as soggy as the winter's afternoon they were supposed to keep at bay.

Earlier this month, George Osborne, Vince Cable and Jeremy Hunt were spotted in a Royal Opera House box surveying the country's most expensive artistic patrimony. What they thought - and how they and the Arts Council might wield their axe - will change the musical landscape of Britain forever.

We have 42 lucky winners of our Only the Best events competition who we hope will have a whale of a time at a variety of shows in all the arts, and possibly surprising themselves. Many thanks to the venues and organisers for the prizes, and good wishes to all the entrants. Please check out our "Boxing Day Bloat" feature of treats to see or do over the holiday period.

We have 42 lucky winners of our Only the Best events competition who we hope will have a whale of a time at a variety of shows in all the arts, and possibly surprising themselves. Many thanks to the venues and organisers for the prizes, and good wishes to all the entrants. Please check out our "Boxing Day Bloat" feature of treats to see or do over the holiday period.

Avatar or The Hurt Locker? Although the Academy Awards are by no means the only barometer of cinematic trends, at this year’s Oscars the two centrifugal strains in contemporary movie-making went head to head. For Best Picture and Director, James Cameron’s digitally created sci-fi-scape locked horns with Kathryn Bigelow’s visceral visit to Iraq. One demonstrated Hollywood’s ever-increasing capacity to wish away actuality as we know it. The other went in where the bullets fly for real. You could see why the two directors, formerly married, had untied the knot.

Yesterday was yesterday. Today there's the rest of the week. What are the options? You could go to the shops and exchange all your presents, or you could pursue something more in the cultural line. To which end, theartsdesk is delighted to propose some suggestions. Our writers strongly recommend that you do one or more of the following while opportunity knocks.

ENGLAND

Once upon a time in the central West Bank, a child called Jesus was allegedly born to a virgin. Once upon an even earlier time, the Greek demigod Perseus was also allegedly born to a virgin, likewise the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli. You can probably see where I’m going with this. There have been countless holy figures from Mexico to China, from Mongolia to Korea, and on and on down the millennia, who have supposedly been born in this biology-denying manner. Within the macrocosm of the mythic it all makes perfect sense: obviously a supernatural being would come into being in a supernatural way – first impressions are extremely important, especially when you’re after unquestioning adoration and obedience.

A nostalgified panacea of pine, tinsel, and tintinnabulation? Or a black hole of loneliness, bitterness and melancholy? Films about Christmas, wholly or partially, have straddled both polarities over the years, producing a surprising number of classics. In compiling this list, I hummed and hahed over Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa (2003), starring Billy Bob Thornton as a hard-drinking (if redeemable) misanthrope who poses in the red suit and white beard to get at a department store’s Christmas takings.

An awful lot of bad singing goes on in the name of Christmas. If it’s not the endless piped renditions of Slade and Cliff Richard, then it’s anaemic carol singers in every railway station and foyer. Each street corner becomes a concert hall (albeit one with exceptionally poor acoustics) and every passer-by an unwitting (not to say unwilling) audience member. Music becomes a commercial mood-board, a festive ear-worm to prompt charitable giving and personal spending in equal measure. How joyous then to escape the icy pavements and ambient noise for a few hours and celebrate Christmas with the ultimate musical professionals, The King’s Singers.

Once upon a time there was a free spirit called Tim, who fell in love with olde folk tales and created little shows all about spells and wonders, and peopled them with princes and princesses, farmers and animals. When he was more grown up, he formed a gang with another free spirit and then with a lady known as the Poet Laureate, who came from a cold, snow-covered country in the North. Then the three of them created a bigger show and staged it in a city called Bristol in the West of England several years ago. Then finally they brought this show, which had grown and grown, to the chief city of the kingdom.