Top 5 Ghost Stories for Christmas
Why Spooky Tales are Perfect for the Holidays
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There’s a lyric in “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” that always confused me growing up. As Andy Williams magnificently croons his way through the cheery tune, he states that “there’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.” Scary ghost stories? With Halloween passing, it was safe to assume the time for malevolent spirits and things that go bump in the night was over, to be replaced by thoughts of good cheer and warm yuletide celebrations. Yet, there was that lyric.
It may have also been due to death in my family around that time. I lost my Grandmother when I was 10 in a cold and dreary February. The Christmas before her passing, it was clear something was up. And the holidays that followed conjured up memories of her through ornaments, photographs, and fading old video footage. Just listen to Sarah McLachlan’s cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Song for a Winter’s Night” and tell me that a candle-lit winter’s night isn’t riddled with spirits.
Over time, for me, Christmas has become synonymous with ghosts of the past — even more so than Halloween. And it makes sense that it would as old ornaments, passed down through generations, are dusted off and brought to the forefront. So I always gravitate to a good holiday ghost story that can be told next to the crackle of a fire and a spinning record of Bing Crosby singing “Silent Night”.
For your own cozy winter nights, here are some of my favorites:
5. The Ghost of Dickens’ Past (1997 TV movie)
It took me forever to find this one, but it’s out there! This fictional retelling of how Charles Dickens came to write his famous Christmas Carol (not to be confused with the 2017 Dan Stevens film), is creepy, haunting, mysterious, and beautiful — combining the storytelling format of A Christmas Carol with biographical elements as Dickens meets a slew of ghosts, both literally and figuratively, on a cold winter’s night.
4. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
If a ghost story need only be haunting without actual specters or spirits, than The Little Match Girl fits this to a tee. Although one could argue there are plenty of both in this piece. The stark and brutal ending of this story; the image of a poor girl trying to sell matches while keeping herself warm on New Year’s Eve; seeing her hopes and dreams as mirages in front of her — it is frightening and haunting in a way the puts the grim in fairy tales and is the type of fare usually reserved for a campfire.
3. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
If you want something that bridges the gap between the terror of Halloween and the mystery of winter, The Woman in Black should be your go-to. Following the old Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas, the novel tells the story of Arthur Kipps who relays this terrifying tale on Christmas eve. Adapted into a feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe, the story he has to share is at once tragic and truly scary, rich with malevolent imagery and unsettling passages.
2. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Following in the unseen footsteps of The Woman in Black, The Turn of the Screw asks its reader to sit around the warm fire on Christmas and listen to this ghastly tale of a governess in a very, very haunted house. Through this, and the aforementioned Susan Hill novel, readers can begin to understand why telling terrifying tales became such a tradition around the season of giving and sharing.
1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
My obsession with holiday spirits (not the kind you mix with Egg Nog) wasn’t helped any by the fact I was also regularly engrossed by the seasonal viewing of Alastair Sim’s “A Christmas Carol” in fuzzy VHS black & white. The bleak images of impoverished 1840s London with Ebeneezer Scrooge being haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future (not to mention the terrifying appearance of a chained Jacob Marley and the misery of spirits outside the bedroom window) gave me an unsettling feeling of something that existed beyond the pale in the dead of a winter’s night. This is the quintessential Christmas ghost story (perhaps even one of the greatest ghost and time traveling tales of all-time). Any adaption will do, but if you haven’t yet, take the time to read the book. Try not to shudder when Scrooge sees the ghostly specter of a hearse traveling in front of him.
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The tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas is one that has faded overtime, but in my opinion, deserves a come-back. No one knows exactly how it started, though it is traced back to the pagan yule celebrations. Regardless, as business slows down and people settle in for the holiday season, memories of the past and hopes of the future come to the forefront, haunting us the way a good ghost story gets under your skin. To that I say, “Spirit… conduct me where you will!”
