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So did you all have a good Christmas!? Did you get everything you wanted i.e. Did you get a Hollyoaks calendar? Well, if you didn’t you can look at our behind the scenes calendar shoot galleries! Ogle at the hunks, perv at the babes!

Of course, around this time of year we always tend to find ourselves reflecting on the last twelve months gone by, which is exactly what we’ve done with our latest quiz – ‘the greatest moments of 2009’! So if you’ve forgotten about Warren’s death, Sarah’s ill-fated trip or Elliot’s night of passion, well, best get revising!

We’ve also got a treat for all you Zoe Lister (Zoe Carpenter) fans out there (and we know there’s a lot of you… heck, I’m one)! There’s a new video interview with Zoe, in which she discusses Zoe’s masterplan to get Lydia to confess to the murder of Sarah Barnes. Then there’s a behind the scenes gallery as the Zoe and Lydia debacle comes to a head! Ooooh!

Anyways, from all of the Hollyoaks team, have a great new year!

What a crazy few days we've just had in the world of Hollyoaks! Last Friday our website had a complete overhaul in memory of Calvin Valentine. But why? Well, last night Hollyoaks bosses hijacked Channel 4's Monday night schedule by adding an extra guerrilla episode of Hollyoaks to tie in with Ricky Whittle (Calvin)’s appearance in the final of Strictly Come Dancing.

The stand alone episode went forward six months into the future to show Ricky Whittle's character, Calvin Valentine, killed from a single gunshot by a mystery assassin on his wedding day to Carmel McQueen.

Madness, but what did you think of the whole thing?

Back to Strictly Come Dancing… Ricky narrowly lost out on victory to Chris Hollins despite being told by judge Len Goodman that he was technically the best dancer in the competition. As if this wasn’t admirable enough, Ricky confirmed that he’d been performing whilst suffering with a hernia the size of a tennis ball! What a man!

And so from one dancing competition to another, we can now reveal that our very own Kieron Richardson (Ste Hay) has made the line-up for 2010’s Dancing On Ice tournament on ITV1. For more details check out this chingwag we had with Kieron about the star-spangled skating extravaganza.

We've also got the following festive treats for you:

• A special Christmas Backstage Video
• Christmas Conundrums - 20 questions about Christmases gone by in Hollyoaks village.
• You also have a few more doors to open of the Hollyoaks Advent Calendar! We've caught up with some of your favourite cast members to find out if they're full of the joys of Christmas, and to see what they'll be getting up to this festive season.

And with all that mind, we bid you a very merry Christmas! We’ll be back on 28^th December to give some fresh new Hollyoaks goodies to keep you going until the New Year!

Good grief! You can’t browse a website, tune into a celebrity dancing TV show, or watch an awesome soap opera without seeing Ricky Whittle’s beautiful mug at the moment. He’s bilmmin’ everywhere! And in the next few days that muscle man bod of his will become as synonymous with the weekend before Christmas as last minute shopping.

Last Saturday, Ricky (Calvin Valentine) and his dance partner Natalie Lowe wowed viewers and judges alike to book their place in this Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing final. Make sure to tune in to BBC One on Saturday evening at 6:35 to see Ricky’s last dance and please, please, please vote our boy for the win!

You can see Calvin not being such a hit on the dance floor in our new Hollyoaks trailer. Oh, and before anyone asks again, the song featured it is Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs ‘Heads Will Roll’! And while we’re at it, have you seen the brand new gallery? Calvin and Carmel? Getting re-married? What the bejeebus is that all about!?

Strictly Come Dancing is not the only competition resolved this weekend. Tomorrow morning on T4 the winner of The Hollyoaks Music Show with Matalan.co.uk’s unsigned act competition is announced. You can also discover who the victor(s) is/are by checking The Hollyoaks Music Show with Matalan.co.uk website from 11am.

And finally… it’s the last episode of The Hollyoaks Music Show with Matalan.co.uk tomorrow morning at 11. Click hither to find out who’s going to be on the show. Be sure to wave it a teary goodbye.

You can never accuse us good folk at e4.com/Hollyoaks of not spoiling you! Who else would give you a picture of a half-naked Nico (Newt) well over a week before the ‘big day’? It’s like Christmas has come early!

The picture’s taken from January 2010’s Cosmopolitan centrefold where Nico bared all to raise awareness of testicular and prostate cancer for Everyman, the UK's leading prostate and testicular cancer campaign.

Now we’ve hopefully put a smile on your face with that saucy pic, how about you put a smile on someone else’s face? You can do this by voting for your favourite of the nine unsigned acts featured on The Hollyoaks Music Show with Matalan.co.uk. The winner of the vote will feature in an episode of Hollyoaks! That’ll be sure to put a smile on their face!

Like us, you guys love to hear all the goss from the Hollyoaks cast members, so what better way to do it than follow them on Twitter.

By now you all probably know what Twitter is, but if you don't, feel free to ask us or just have a dabble on it to find out.

Your first port of call on Twitter should be with us: http://twitter.com/insidehollyoaks

We've got all the juice!

Then you've got these Hollyoaks cast members...

Regular 'Oaks Tweeters

Jess Fox (Nancy): http://twitter.com/JesslaFox
Gerard McCarthy (Kris): http://twitter.com/Gerard_McCarthy
Zoe Lister (Zoe): http://twitter.com/ZoeLister
Nico Mirallegro (Newt): http://twitter.com/NicoMirallegro
Hollie-Jay Bowes (Michaela): http://twitter.com/jolliehaybowes
Jorgie Porter (Theresa): http://twitter.com/miss_jay_pee
Kevin Sacre (Jake): http://twitter.com/Kevin_Sacre
Melissa Walton (Loretta): http://twitter.com/MelissaxWalton
Garnon Davies (Elliot): http://twitter.com/GarnonDavies
Nathalie Emmanuel (Sasha): http://twitter.com/missnemmanuel
Lydia Rose Kelly (Lydia): http://twitter.com/LydiaRoseKelly
Dominique Jackson (Lauren): http://twitter.com/DeeHJay
Kieron Richardson (Ste): http://twitter.com/kieron23
Ashley Taylor Dawson (Darren): http://twitter.com/ashoztd
Finn Jones (Jamie): http://twitter.com/FinnJones
Andy Moss (Rhys): http://twitter.com/AndyMosss
Ricky Whittle (Calvin): http://twitter.com/MrRickyWhittle
Bronagh Waugh (Cheryl): http://twitter.com/bronaghwaugh
Claire Cooper (Jacqui): http://twitter.com/CLAIREECOOPER

Ex-'Oaks Tweeters

Matt Littler (Max): http://twitter.com/MattLittler
Jodi Albert (Debbie Dean): http://twitter.com/JodiAlbert
Hannah Tointon (Katy Fox): http://twitter.com/hannaht2
Chris Fountain (Justin): http://twitter.com/fountain1987
Devon Anderson (Sonny): http://twitter.com/DevonAnderson87
Loui Batley (Sarah Barnes): http://twitter.com/Louibatley

Tweet-me-do!

Do you remember that old website that we used to have? You know, the green and white one? The one that was inferior to this new, shiny, purple and white one? Yeah, well, we had a competition on it in which you could win a 2010 Hollyoaks calendar. All you had to do was watch Nico Mirallegro (Newt)’s backstage video and correctly identify that Jimmy McKenna (Jack Osbourne) was acting like a penguin … In hindsight, it was kind of an odd competition.

Anyway, the lucky winners who’ll be receiving the fruity calendars are:

Joy Storey Smith

Alicia Livingston

Kirsty Allum

Rebecca Beale

Joanne Cassie

Paul Cunningham

AND

James Bowyer

If you’re called Bethany Groom and you live in Hartlepool, please get in contact with us because you’ve won a calendar too, but we need confirmation stuff from you. No imitators, please, we have ways and means of knowing if you are the real Bethany Groom!

Speaking of calendars, we do hope you’ve been keeping up to date with the Hollyoaks Advent Calendar. Each day we’ve a different cast member behind the Advent Calendar door telling us what they'll be getting up to this festive season. Check it!

And in other yuletide news… We’ll be recording a backstage vid with Emma Rigby (Hannah Ashworth) later this week. The behind the scenes video should be going up on the website just after Christmas, so keep your eyes well and truly peeled like a Christmas tangerine ready to be devoured.

Here at Hollyoaks HQ it's pretty darn difficult to avoid Christmas. We've already got into the festive spirit by giving you two very merry Hollyoaks picture galleries and we’ve even started our own Hollyoaks Advent Calendar.  It’s no wonder we’re feeling the warmth of the Yuletide period because filming of Christmas episodes occur about six weeks or so before they actually go out on TV. So while you good Hollyoaks loving people are enjoying trick and treating at Halloween we're doing things like recording T4's Rick Edwards falling over reindeers, as shown in the video above!

Yep, it seems like Rick’s everywhere these days - first he’s hosting The Hollyoaks Music Show with Matalan.co.uk and now he’s making a cameo appearance in tonight’s Channel 4 episode of Hollyoaks! For a spoiler video of the episode come bring your impatient eyes over here.

You can catch more of the hunky Rick Edwards on the ninth episode of The Hollyoaks Music Show with Matalan.co.uk. Unsure of what to expect on it? Well, Rick gently takes you through what’s to come in this here trailer video.

You may have noticed something a bit different about the Hollyoaks website - yes, it’s a bit more purple! That, ladies and gentle folk, is because the Hollyoaks website is now on e4.com!

We’ve done this for a few reasons:

1)     Hollyoaks has its ‘First Look’ on e4, so it kind of makes sense for us to make the Hollyoaks website all e4-like.

2)     Once you’ve registered on e4.com by filling in couple of info boxes, you’ll be able make your comments on our blogs, videos, pictures and - I don’t know - even the state of Darren Osborne’s floral shirts.

3)     You can rate things. So, say if you’re really digging our latest backstage video or perhaps, heaven forbid, you’re hating it, then you can ‘Yay!’ it or ‘Nay’ it.

4)     You’ll be able to upload videos and photos just like peeps did when we launched Desperately Seeking, the online audition that found Beth Kingston (who now plays India).

5)     Now, using the comments feature, you’ll be able to tell us what you’d like to see more of on the Hollyoaks website.

So, there you have it, Hollyoaks is now on e4.com. Take your time to get to know the website and if you have any questions you know what you can do – comment!