Mark Gatiss hopes to bring more festive ghost stories to BBC Four

Speaking to RadioTimes.com and other media, Gatiss said, “It's such a privilege to do this, I'd love to carry on and I'm sure we'd all like to do one next year.

“It’s a lovely space, it’s a kind of safe space – thank God we’ve got BBC Four, hopefully for a long time, because it’s the sort of place these things belong.”

And Gatiss also gave a few hints about some stories that could be ripe for future adaptations, with Count Magnus and Casting the Runes - both also written by James - touted as possibilities.

“The one everyone has always wanted to do is Count Magnus, which eluded the great Lawrence Gordon Clark [who helmed the A Ghost Story For Christmas series in the 1970s],” he said. “Unfortunately it’s set in Sweden - but it's possible!”

But Gatiss isn’t only interested in giving us Yuletide frights via adaptations - he’d love to deliver some more original ghost stories as well, and claims it’s all about striking a balance between the two.

“I'd love to experiment with it,” he said. “It's a funny thing, in an ideal world I'd like to do an adaptation and a new one in rotation, to keep it fresh and to keep things sort of feeding into it.”

Whichever form they come in though - originals or adaptations - many fans will just be happy that Gatiss is keeping this particular tradition alive.

Martin’s Close airs on Christmas Eve at 10pm on BBC Four