Festive preparations

There are a number of things you might be trying to celebrate in the coming weeks, so we bring you advice about how best to survive the festive season on Hopeless, Maine.

Those of you who like getting into the water need to keep in mind both the murderously low temperatures and the murderously hungry waterlife. We will undertake to believe that you’re just very keen on cold water and not that you have been driven to madness if you persist in this peculiar activity. Although I’m increasingly suspicious that some of you flapping about in lakes are so undead as to not feel the cold, which is rather indecorous of you.

Say no to night potato vodka. It is not magically better or safer right now, it will hurt you. Just don’t. Please.

After last year we are fairly sure that the dustcats know about Yule cats. They won’t actually kill you if you don’t have new clothes, but anyone looking especially shabby is at serious risk of being pounced on in unusually humiliating ways.

It isn’t Father Christmas, he doesn’t come here. The noise on the roof is almost certainly a donkey. Sometimes they poop down the chimneys. Whether you consider that a gift is very much at your discretion.

If anything has hatched out of your meese stocking, burn it at the first available opportunity.

For those of you who are more recently arrived, please be aware that there is an island tradition of knocking on doors after dark and asking for food and drink. If you don’t comply, there will be singing. You have been warned. Other things also knock on doors after dark looking for food, and the ones that do not do the singing are arguably much worse.

Please leave out at least one candle during the coming weeks. We have good traditions of keeping the departed well supplied. Angry ghosts are so unseasonal.

If you find yourself feeling that you are having fun, check your pantry supplies for signs of mould and fungus, and ascertain whether you are also feverish. In case of jollity, remember that the black eyed meese in your stocking are here to help you and that breathing in their peculiar aroma will put you back to normal in no time.