Any Star Wars fans who watched the teaser trailer for The Force Awakens probably got very excited – we know we sure did. But like us, many fans’ hearts probably sank when the release date flashed up at the end.

December 18?! That’s like over a year away! As of today it’s exactly a year away. So how can fans fill the 365 days between now and then? We have some ideas…

1. Watch all six previous films on a continuous loop

Star Wars Episode III DVD
(Elizabeth Dalziel/AP)

After some quick maths we reckon you could watch the entire Star Wars saga 659 times in one year. And 418 of every 797 minutes of that would be the prequels, so you could easily take frequent naps.

2. Learn Wookiee

Chewbacca
(Richard Drew/AP)

Or maybe Ewok? Either way it’ll probably take you at least a year to master all the different high-pitched growls involved.

3. Make your own Star Wars film

Stormtrooper in Comic Con crowd
(Jonathan Brady/PA)

We reckon JJ Abrams is dragging his heels with this film. After all, the Jurassic Park teaser trailer was only released a week earlier, and that’s out in the summer! It’d be easy to make a budget version from scratch before The Force Awakens gets anywhere near a cinema.

4. Manufacture your own The Force Awakens merchandise

BB8 ball droid
(screenshot/Disney)

We reckon now’s a good time to get a head start on the big retailers. Dismember that old R2-D2 toy you’ve got in the attic and stick its head on a football. Hey presto – next-gen wheely droid toy!

5. Try to forget about Jar Jar Binks

There are a number of pretty intense, long-term meditation techniques that might help with this. But we’re doubtful a year will be long enough to banish the irritating Gungan from your thoughts.

6. Build a functional pod racer

Pod racer
(John Seb Barber/Flickr)

Cobbling the engines and chassis together from scrap shouldn’t be too hard. We expect most of your time will be taken up getting it to hover off the ground at hundreds of miles an hour.

7. Attempt to channel Darth Vader

Darth Vader
(Shizuo Kambayashi/AP)

After a year with a bucket on your head, you too will probably want to blow up a planet.

8. Make the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive technology a reality

Millennium Falcon
(Bay Area News Group/ABACA)

Why not? We reckon the only reason other scientists haven’t managed to perfect super fast space travel is because they’ve been wasting their time trying to land on comets and whatnot.

9. Start queuing now

Cinema queue
(Sang Tan/AP)

We’re pretty sure there’s going to be iPhone-launch levels of excitement around the seventh film. We wouldn’t blame you if you pitched a tent outside your local Cineworld now…*

*(Other cinema chains are available)

10. Read the whole of Wookieepedia

On laptop in tent
Which is something you can do while you’re in that massive queue (Andre Penner/AP)

The wiki site dedicated to Star Wars has well over 100,000 (often fairly lengthy) articles. We reckon if you read between 300 and 350 articles a day you could just about do this.

11. Develop some new passions

Stamp collection
Ahhh… the beloved collection of a philatelist (Michael Ciaglo/AP)

Perhaps it’s just time to get some perspective. There are other things out there apart from Star Wars. There’s a similar thing called Star Trek, for example. Or maybe try salsa dancing, stamp collecting, baseball, or learning Korean?

Or there’s just endless reams of fan-fiction and Twitter speculation out there, available at the click of a button like an intergalactic comfort blanket.