Why Ghost Stories for Christmas?

December is a hard time of year, I’m just going to say it. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, it's the darkest time of year. If you live in Northern Ontario, it's cold and blustery and you're probably covered in snow. There are colds and flus going around. The roads are icy. It's generally a mess..

It can be a lonely time for some. The countless Christmas specials and Hallmark movies, a laser beam highlighting familial or romantic connections we may lack. For others, it can be a time when dark memories divorce you from the holiday merrymakers, creating a feeling of otherness and isolation. Or maybe you're not a Christian and feel out of lockstep with those around you. Maybe you just plain don't like the holidays (valid.)

Cold and dark. Lonely and isolating. Perhaps that's why it's the traditional time of year for gathering around the

hearth and telling ghost stories. For the English, anyways, December is prime time for tales of ghosts and ghoulies. Ghost stories are the traditional Christmas pastime, older than the overly bright and cheery displays of celebration that have been in vogue since the Victorian Age. Without doubt the best known of these types of stories today is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, as it's been retold so many times in film and TV. But it's only the tip of a very large iceberg of ghost-themed Christmas storytelling. If you'd like a good sample of these, checkout the anthology, Ghosts of Christmas Past edited by Tim Martin.

I’m not writing this to step on the toes of those who are enjoying their Yuletide pageantry – let people enjoy things! - but knowing there are alternate traditions can be a comforting reprieve for those divorced from the commercialized cheer.

There are so many reasons you may not feel like celebrating - due to mental illness, loneliness, tragedy, or maybe you just prefer the spooky to the saccharine. To be clear, you don’t have to do anything, and you don’t need a reason for that. But for some of us, it’s comforting to know that there is a longstanding tradition of December ghosts waiting to guide us through the darkest nights. For some of us, haunted houses are our happy place.

Ghost stories can be many things. Ghosts are one of the most flexible metaphors out there. They can be spooky fun and take you away from your real-life problems by providing an escape into thrills and chills. Or they can provide powerful meditations on nostalgia and grief. Ghost stories can be gentle, evoking the hope for something beyond death. They can be cathartic, providing a safe space for writer and reader to work through their own anxieties.

So, I say bring on the Christmas horror movie marathons, recount your real or imagined paranormal encounters with friends around the fire, or by flickering candlelight, and enjoy the original spooky season – Christmas!

This year, I am publishing a short story titled The Light of Day. I describe it as “quiet horror,” meaning it’s not going to terrify you or give you nightmares, but it does have some haunting elements. It’s also not explicitly Christmas-themed, but there is snow.

The Light of Day is about Joan. Joan is in her apartment. She has been in her apartment for a very long time. Is there somewhere she's supposed to be? Why are there so many holes in her memory and why does the surrounding village seem as empty as her head?

The Light of Day is only being released as an eBook for the time being. It's about 20 pages long, so it doesn't make sense to release it in print format. My goal is to eventually have enough short stories to put together a collection, and that I will do in print as well as digital.

This is a tradition I would like to carry forward and hopefully complete a short ghostly yarn each December.

Thanks for reading, friends!

Want to learn more about the Christmas ghost story tradition? Here are some fun articles for further reading:

Ghost Stories of Christmas: A Chilling Victorian Tradition by Molly Hanson

The History of Holiday Ghost Stories by Andrew Huntley

On the Lost Christmastime Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories by Olivia Rutigliano