Criminey, it’s cold outside. If all goes as planned, by the time you pluck this paper out of your blue box on Saturday, there will be a blanket of snow covering your yard, your house and, if you stand still too long, it’ll cover you, too.

It’s often this time of year when Father Winter comes a-knocking that school schedules, work schedules and family schedules go all helter skelter.

The bitter cold is enough to want to force you inside all winter with hot chocolate, hot soup and bread and a good book or your favorite magazine. The reality of it, however, is that none of us can seclude ourselves into hermitdom just because baby, it’s cold outside.

Instead, we have to buck it up and continue our lives. So, in that vein, there are some things that should be done to survive that cold arctic blast headed our way:

• Drive if you must, but don’t if you can avoid it. Below-freezing temperatures wreak havoc on road conditions. If there’s a bit of water on the road and the temperature falls below zero, that creates a magical force called black ice. This magical force possesses vehicles and makes them do things they normally wouldn’t willingly do, like slip and slide or continue moving forward when the driver is begging the vehicle to stop.

Also, sometimes when it’s snowing at night, the headlights reflect on the snow and suddenly watching pretty snowflakes falling from the sky turns into a phone call to 911. Pay attention to the road.

For those who aren’t used to driving in arctic conditions, it can be a little freaky. If you panic behind the wheel, bad things happen. So, if you are scared to drive in the snow, please don’t.

• Bring your pets indoors. Yes, they have fur, but fur can get wet, as snow is frozen water. And pets can get cold, too.

• Bring your plants indoors. They can freeze pretty easily, which will bring much, much frustration in the spring when your plants are dead and you have no one to blame but yourself for not taking care of them in the winter.

• Use de-icer on your driveway. If you can’t get traction to start your car, you’re going anywhere. Like a computer that’s being forced to work beyond it’s memory’s capacity, all you’ll get is spinning wheels.

• Get your snow toys ready and, by all means, get outside and play. Regardless of your age or what you do in your grown-up life, snow is an excuse to play like an 8-year-old again. Build a snowman/woman/person/snowmosapien. Have a snowball fight. Go sledding.

Play until you’re frozen cold, go inside and dry your clothes then go back outside again.

While you’re thawing out, that’s a pretty good time to drink the aforementioned hot chocolate and read that good book.

In the paraphrased words of Ferris Bueller, life moves pretty fast. If you don’t slow down once in a while, you might miss it.

Snow days are the perfect opportunity to slow down. Take advantage of it.