Christmas is a magical time of year. Spending time with family, blood or chosen, and good friends, eating lovely food and a few too many dips in the Quality Street tub. Well, it is for those of us that don’t live in soap land and in EastEnders, it looks as though it’ll be a serving of drama to go alongside the roast beast.

The good folk at ‘Enders have dropped the first load of December spoilers, and, of course, there’s trouble afoot in Albert Square.

Alongside further drama for Zoe Slater (Michelle Ryan), who turns to Lauren Branning (Jacqueline Jossa) for help, Billy Mitchell (Perry Fenwick) is given a special mission by granddaughter Lexi Pearce (Isabella Brown), while casting gets underway for Nigel Bates’ (Paul Bradley) festive film.

There’s further spoilers for two particular clans, though, with Howie Danes’ (Delroy Atkinson) big decision that could cause untold trouble for the Trueman clan, while Nicola Mitchell (Laura Doddington) tries to hold her family together in the wake of the recent chaos Ravi Gulati’s (Aaron Thiara) drug ring brought to their door.

Howie’s choice

Poor Howie has been really going through it recently, and it seems that December will bring fresh trouble to his door, with an show insider promising that he will make a ‘life-changing decision’, with the fall out set to be catastrophic.

Howie turned to criminality back in July after hearing partner Kim Fox (Tameka Empson) lamenting that her ex, Vincent Hubbard (Richard Blackwood) was much better of a provider than he is. Howie was deeply wounded by what he heard and spiralled as a result.

He later won £6,000 alongside Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker) when the two placed a bet on a racehorse, though the money was soon stolen by Oscar Branning (Pierre Moullier).

After confirming Oscar’s involvement, he confronted both him and his sister, Lauren, who’d learned of the trouble her brother had caused, demanding the money back in return for his silence.

Lauren stood strong and dared Howie to blow the secret, forcing Howie to retreat, though when he caught the brother-sister duo retrieving both the stolen loot and the balaclava Oscar had worn in the burglary and took both, placing both Brannings firmly on the back foot.

Howie’s dip into crime didn’t stop there, though. After leaving them on top of her car before driving off, Kim utterly wrecked her brand new computer and filming equipment. In order to continue being seen as a provider, Howie said he’d pick up extra work as a courier and quickly replace the pricey camera and laptop.

Discovering a gold necklace inside a parcel he was set to deliver, Howie couldn’t resist but pocket it, presumably to sell in order to raise funds.

Will Howie’s life-changing decision extricate him from the criminality he’s found himself mired in? Or will he fall further into it in order to keep Kim happy?

The Mitchell mess

It’s not just Howie who’s found himself in a world of trouble, as Nicola struggles to protect her deeply troubled son, Harry Mitchell (Elijah Holloway), in the aftermath of Tobias ‘Okie’ Okyere’s (Aayan Ibikunle Shoderu) death.

After Harry stabbed the drug dealer, his dad Teddy Mitchell (Roland Manookian) took the rap to protect his boy, who was in the grips of drug withdrawal.

While holding Harry hostage, Okie had continually supplied him with drugs, leading him to develop an addiction, one he’s struggling to manage as he deals with his crippling guilt over both killing his tormentor and watching his dad face a life sentence for it.

Nicola is as tough as old boots, but can she hold her son together as he further sinks into a full-blown relapse?