The BBC has announced that two EastEnders episodes will not be released early on iPlayer this Christmas week. Unsurprisingly, these are the two going out on 25 December, which are set to be major event viewing.

This year’s Christmas Day will see the Mitchells come together for a family meal, with Nigel Bates hoping to make it the best year ever amid his worsening dementia.

The Beales and Brannings also come together, but things are a lot more rocky, especially with Max reeling from Oscar’s bombshell revelation and Cindy’s presence.

The Slaters open the Queen Vic for anyone wanting to spend the day there, but Kat sends everyone away out of fear for Zoe’s wellbeing amid her stalker ordeal.

The situation is set to get even worse, as events take an explosive turn.

While you’ll have to wait until 7.45pm and 9.45pm to watch the Christmas Day episodes, the other four days this week (we’re getting six episodes over five days this week) are dropping at 6am on iPlayer as usual.

If you want more spoilers for Christmas Day as well as for the rest of the week, you can view them right here.

This is the first Christmas under the soap’s new boss Ben Wadey, who recently spoke about why this time of year is so important for him and for the show.

“For me, growing up and as a fan, Christmas is EastEnders, and I always have that countdown to the Christmas episode,” he said. “My Christmas Day is normally structured around the watching of EastEnders.

“So coming in, I really wanted to not just make Christmas Day amazing and talk to the writers and the team about how big we could go, but actually give a series of treats over the Christmas period.”

One of this week’s treats, happening tomorrow, is the return of Pat Butcher and Barry Evans (as figments of Nigel’s imagination).

Pam St Clement spoke about what it was like donning Pat’s clothes and earrings again, describing it as “bewildering”.

EastEnders airs on BBC One and streams on iPlayer.