It was early February: the shortening nights didn’t feel shorter, but the lengthening days felt longer. Scrooge had been avoiding the books. He had been avoiding the business altogether, leaving it to Bob and paying him more again for the responsibility. To give out prize turkeys and charitable donations was a wonderful thing: to be a man of business in a city of squeezing, covetous sinners was something rather different. It shook the fragile grasp he had regained on his soul. And what if he could not live in this new way? What if expenses climbed, and the debt he forgave was just the sum needed for Tiny Tim’s doctor? The spirits had shown him the cost of a closed heart. Scrooge feared the cost of an open heart was greater, and that he must come to understand it alone.

But not alone—never alone, now. For there was the cost, but here was the profit: that he could seek comfort from the spirits of the living.

On Christmas Eve, the last window of my advent calendar leapt down and ran out into the street. I gave chase, swift-slippered, my dressing gown billowing. The day was cold and clear, and passers by called “Merry Christmas!” as I pursued the fleeing card rectangle along the pavements. It was small and nimble, darting through fences and dog’s legs, but on the straights I had the advantage. I finally ran it down on the school playing fields, when it encountered a puddle too large to go around. Between being caught and being soggy, it chose being caught.

“I’m sorry,” the window said. “I ran because I’m ashamed. I don’t have any chocolate inside me.”

I reassured it, and fearful but brave, it swung open. The chocolate inside was shiny and fragrant and rich and perfect. We walked home together, singing carols.

The Santa train derailed, and as my false beard detached I saw the hope in the children’s eyes turn to fear. Santa will save us, they had been thinking. His reindeer will haul the train into the sky to safety. Now they saw both truths at once: that Santa wasn’t real, and that we were all going to die. I grabbed at the beard, as though it would help, and just as it came away entirely I heard the jingling of bells. The carriage steadied, and flew up into the stars.

I cultivated the world’s largest mushroom, so that I could sit on it and fish, like a little gnome. It was quite incidental that the thing grows so dense and rapid that it can meet the protein needs of half the world. It was quite unintentional that the thing grows so uncontrollably that it covers half the world. But there are so many lovely places to sit now.

There were once two friends who started making yoghurt after seeing a video on the internet. They didn’t like yoghurt all that much, but it seemed like magic, so they thought they would try it. They worked apart, so that if one batch went wrong, they could compare notes to work out why. Before long it got competitive. More yoghurt, thicker yoghurt, tangier yoghurt. There was less and less room for anything else. Eventually, one of them would have to quit, or open a yoghurt business. That’s the Jones’s Spiteful Yoghurt brand story, and it’s still why we make yoghurt today.

Mister Crimvis Squib had wrapped all of his presents, most of the tins in the cupboard, five of his shoes, his pillow, his left leg, and the cat. He had wrapped several things that he couldn’t remember what they were. He had, perhaps, got a little bit carried away. But wrapping things up was his favourite part of Christmas. He piled everything under the tree, except for his left leg, which ne needed to walk on, and the cat, who had mostly unwrapped herself and was curled up under the tree anyway. In a few days, he would have to unwrap it all and wrap the presents back up again. He was looking forward to it. For now, he stuffed his stocking with the last lot of wrapping paper to use as a pillow, wrapped up the rest of himself, and fell into a long and contented sleep.

Sometimes, halfway down the hill, when the sledge was still picking up speed and there was so far still to go, she felt that it would never stop. And then, one day, it didn’t. She went hurtling across the park, past snowmen and kids with chilly fingers, and out into the street. She flew between parked cars and garden fences and discarded Christmas trees. She shot out into the fields and over them, taking great jumps from hills, sheep parting at her approach. She skimmed over the ocean until she reached land again. Faster and faster and faster, until she could circle the Earth in a single night.

Ground down to powder, but it takes more than that. When you grind a thing to powder it gets stronger. Sometimes it gets explosive. Grind it till you can’t grind any smaller and then what can you do? It’s all over you then. It’s jamming up your gears. It’s wearing you down. And when you seize up, they’ll scrape it back out of you, unchanged. You could have left it alone to begin with.

The kids got me with a snowball, right on the back of my neck so it dropped down into my coat. I shrieked, and they laughed at that, so I laughed along. “That was a good shot,” I shouted over to them, and they landed another one smack in the teeth. I wanted to keep on pretending I wasn’t upset. But it was Christmastime, so I gave them what they wanted.

I crawled deep into the leaf-drift, where I would only be found by small creatures who understand the warmth of dark spaces. I thought I would rise up as a leaf-man, a spirit of the forest. But the leaves melt faster than you imagine, and I melted with them, into the earth.

At night I find new constellations. A thousand stars can trace uncountable paths, and the longer you look, the more stars you see. In the darkest hours, there are so many that the sky is a clear canvas. As the year turns, the pictures I have made pass and return. There is always something to make, even here, lashed to my rock.

The invitation came with directions to a recommended car park, which I followed until our car was teetering on the edge of a terrifying abyss. A sign said, “PLEASE PAY AND DISPLAY”, and taped over the top, “NO CHARGE FROM NOVEMBER 1742”. There was a smell in the air like when you’re toasting marshmallows and yours catches fire and it was the last one in the bag. Not wanting to make a fuss, I shifted back into first and drove us over the edge.

My friend got hold of a “Baby On Board” badge, and he wore it on the tube every day. He thought it was funny. But more and more, he found that there would always be someone who gave him a seat. They’d rather give their seat to some dickhead than keep it from someone who needed it. For a little while, he thought that was funny too. Then one day, someone got on who looked just like him, and they had a badge as well. So Mick tried to give them his seat, but they wouldn’t take it. And nobody else offered. He had to pretend he was getting off at the next stop. Turns out the man can feel shame. He still wears the badge. Just on the inside of his jacket.

After the fourth time her finger grew back, she accepted that she was just built that way now, like a starfish. She got a family bucket from the chicken shop, figuring she needed it. This changes everything, she thought, as she sprinkled paprika salt on the chips. But she was lucky after that. It never really came up again.