Do you know how to treat mistletoe poisoning? Or how to escape a stampede of shoppers?

You can find the solutions to these and many other holiday emergencies in “The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Holidays,” by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht.

Wryly humorous and downright practical, Piven and Borgenicht outline a wide range of dangerous scenarios that could occur during the perilous period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.

Each scenario is given a brief description, and a step-by-step solution gives a run-down of the general actions to be taken. Several variant scenarios are also given space; “How to Prevent a Tree From Toppling Over” provides instructions for attaching both ceiling and wall guy wires to the tree.

Some solutions are crafty, such as “How to Make an Emergency Menorah” and “How to Wrap a Present Without Wrapping Paper,” while some provide guidance to handle the everyday emergencies that may occur during the holidays, such as “How to Fit into Clothing That is Too Tight” and “How to Open a Bottle of Wine With a Broken Cork.”

Piven and Borgenicht also provide counter-scenarios, giving the book a bit of balance in instruction; “How to Rescue Someone Stuck in a Chimney” is placed directly next to “How to Climb Down a Chimney.”

The instructions themselves verge on comical at times. “How to Silence a Group Of Carolers” instructs the reader to “Answer the door in a robe or towel. Embarrassed, the carolers may simply leave. Nudity (even partial) may offend them and make them unable to sing.

“Call to another person inside the house (real or imaginary), ‘I’ll be right back.'”

Illustrations provide visual instruction for most of the scenarios, sometimes adding a definite element of humor to the book. “How to Silence a Group of Carolers” pictures a man in a towel answering his door with a look of contempt on his face while a family of four carolers looks on with shock.

What is most impressive about “Holidays” is the list of experts Piven and Borgenicht consulted in writing the book. A physicist at Cal Tech studying ice crystals was consulted for “How to Make Snowballs,” and the program manager of the Reindeer Research Program at the University of Alaska gave instructions for “How to Fend Off a Charging Reindeer.”

Though not every scenario in the book generated laughs or was truly informative, “Holidays” is imaginative and lighthearted, and I was surprised to find that I had developed an almost voyeuristic affinity for the book while reading it.

I found myself flipping through the book rather than just reading it from beginning to end; “Holidays” is meant to be an easy and light read, most suited for a flight to a holiday destination.

After reading “Holidays,” I most definitely feel prepared for the elusively innocent upcoming Christmas break, and I will no doubt be putting the instructions for “How to Determine the Contents of a Wrapped Gift” to good use.