There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago
~It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
In the Victorian era it was quite common to gather on Christmas Eve to tell ghost stories.
“Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories,” wrote British humorist Jerome K. Jerome as part of his introduction to an anthology of Christmas ghost stories titled “Told After Supper“ in 1891. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.” ( Desert News December 23, 2010)
"Telling ghost stories during winter is a hallowed tradition, a folk custom stretches back centuries, when families would wile away the winter nights with tales of spooks and monsters. “A sad tale’s best for winter,” Mamillius proclaims in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale: “I have one. Of sprites and goblins.” And the titular Jew of Malta in Christopher Marlowe’s play at one point muses, “Now I remember those old women’s words, Who in my wealth would tell me winter’s tales, And speak of spirits and ghosts by night.”" (Smithsonian.com December 15, 2017)
Eventually Halloween took over as the night of darkness and ghostly tales. When Irish and Scottish immigrants brought Halloween customs to the United States Americans preferred tales of ghosts and goblins over other cultural aspects of the people and their holiday.
But "the transition from Christmas to Halloween as the preeminent holiday for ghosts was an uneven one. Even as late as 1915, Christmas annuals of magazines were still dominated by ghost stories, and Florence Kingsland’s 1904 Book of Indoor and Outdoor Games still lists ghost stories as fine fare for a Christmas celebration: “The realm of spirits was always thought to be nearer to that of mortals on Christmas than at any other time,” she writes." (Colin Dickey Smithsonian.com December 15, 2017)
If you think about it, ghost stories at Christmas makes perfect sense.
"When the night grows long and the year is growing to a close, it’s only natural that people feel an instinct to gather together. At the edge of the year, it also makes sense to think about people and places that are no longer with us. Thus, the Christmas ghost story. Its origins have little to do with the kind of commercial Christmas we've celebrated since the Victorian age. They’re about darker, older, more fundamental things: winter, death, rebirth, and the rapt connection between a teller and his or her audience. But they’re packaged in the cozy trappings of the holiday." (Smithsonian.com December 23, 2016)
Many of us think about family members long gone during the holidays, perhaps more so than any other time of year. The "ghosts of Christmas past" make us nostalgic, sad, whimsical, and sometimes down right spooked.
The days are short and the nights long. Imagine a time before electricity when the nights were endless and pitch black. Scary things lurk in the darkness. People were superstitious and terrified.
In days of old, Yule, the longest night of year celebrated on the Winter Solstice, was a time when the dead had better access to the living. Old myths and legends of the winter holidays are full of ghosts, witches, fairies, elves, goblins and demons. It was a season of darkness filled with all things spooky.
By the Victorian era and the industrial age gas lamps brought more light to the night and it was safer to speak about what could be lurking outside in the darkness. People would get a thrill out of scaring each other. Ghost stories were a way to entertain.
The twentieth century evolved Christmas into a bright commercial celebration of presents and Santa Claus. Twinkling lights tore the holiday away from its dark roots and made it a season of merriment.
But in the twenty first century we see a resurgence of interest in the old ways. More people want to know the stories of "Christmases long, long ago" including those tales of Christmas Spirits. It's time to resurrect the dead tradition of Christmas ghost stories.
One of the most well known ghostly Christmas tales is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens who also wrote quite a few other tales of holiday spirits.
The New York Public Library blog published a piece about Dickens in 2014, it listed these other creepy Christmas tales by Dickens.
You may be able to find them at your local library. A couple are free for your kindle on Amazon.
Here are some anthologies full of vintage creepy Christmas tales.
Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings Publisher: British Library Publishing
Festive cheer turns to maddening fear in this new collection of seasonal hauntings, presenting the best Christmas ghost stories from the 1850s to the 1960s. The traditional trappings of the holiday are turned upside down as restless spirits disrupt the merry games of the living, Christmas trees teem with spiteful pagan presences, and the Devil himself treads the boards at the village pantomime.
As the cold night of winter closes in and the glow of the hearth begins to flicker and fade, the uninvited visitors gather in the dark in this distinctive assortment of haunting tales.
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost StoriesThe first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals
During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume.
“In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it?” - John Berwick Harwood, “Horror: A True Tale”
“Suddenly I aroused with a start and as ghostly a thrill of horror as ever I remember to have felt in my life. Something—what, I knew not—seemed near, something nameless, but unutterably awful.” - Ada Buisson, “The Ghost’s Summons”
“There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had animated her while she lived.” - Walter Scott, “The Tapestried Chamber”
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Volume TwoFifteen more chilling tales of Yuletide terror, collected from rare Victorian periodicals
Following the popularity of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843), Victorian newspapers and magazines frequently featured ghost stories at Christmas time, and reading them by candlelight or the fireside became an annual tradition. This second volume of Victorian Christmas ghost stories contains fifteen tales, most of which have never been reprinted. They represent a mix of the diverse styles and themes common to Victorian ghost fiction and include works by once-popular authors like Grant Allen and Eliza Lynn Linton as well as contributions from anonymous or wholly forgotten writers. This volume also features a new introduction by Prof. Allen Grove.
“At first I was aware only of a bluish, misty, phosphorescent light, and then a ghastly terror, that froze the very blood in my veins, seized me, for suddenly I saw rise up out of the inky darkness the form of a man—the eyes of a hideous red, fixed on mine with a look of hate ...” - Coulson Kernahan, “Haunted!”
“As I stood in breathless horror, unable to stir a limb, the figure raised its arm, a skeleton hand emerged from the heavy folds of the cloak, and touched my elbow. A scorching pain shot through me, I uttered a shriek——” - Emily Arnold, “The Ghost of the Treasure-Chamber”
“Again that shudder passed through his body, and again he unwillingly met the glance of those diabolical eyes upon the scroll. Horror of horrors! was the face alive, or was he going mad?” - Anonymous, “The Weird Violin”
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Volume ThreeA new collection of twenty ghostly tales of Yuletide terror, collected from rare Victorian periodicals
Seeking to capitalize on the success of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843), Victorian newspapers and magazines frequently featured ghost stories at Christmas time, and reading them by candlelight or the fireside became an annual tradition, a tradition Valancourt Books is pleased to continue with our series of Victorian Christmas ghost stories. This third volume contains twenty tales, most of them never before reprinted. They represent a mix of the diverse styles and themes common to Victorian ghost fiction and include works by once-popular authors like Ellen Wood and Charlotte Riddell as well as contributions from anonymous or wholly forgotten writers. This volume also features a new introduction by Prof. Simon Stern.
"Before me, with the sickly light from the lantern shining right down upon it, was--a cloven hoof! Then the awfulness of the compact I had made came to my mind with terrible force ..." - Frederick Manley, "The Ghost of the Cross-Roads"
"By the fireplace there was a large hideous pool of blood soaking into the carpet, and leaving ghastly stains around. I am not ashamed to confess that my brain reeled; the mysterious horror overcame me ..." - Lillie Harris, "19, Great Hanover Street"
"A fearful white face comes to me; a horrible mask, with features drawn as in agony--ghastly, pale, hideous! Death or approaching death, violent death, written in every line. Every feature distorted. Eyes starting from the head. Thin lips moving and working--lips that are cursing, although I hear no sound." - Hugh Conway, "A Dead Man's Face"
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