Ghosts of Christmas Past

Ghost stories used to play a bigger role at Christmas then they do nowadays. How can that be considering the intense interest in all things paranormal on TV and elsewhere? Let’s see what CryptoVille can find out.

In 1891, Jerome K. Jerome wrote in his collection Told After Supper, “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories.” Apparently the telling of ghost stories was very exciting to the Victorians.

He continued, “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.”

Sound familiar? I wonder what they would think of the myriad of television shows we have now that are searching for ghosts and “proof” of an afterlife.  They may have fainted at the sight of all the murder mysteries we have nowadays too. I think they would have loved it!

According to Colin Dickey who wrote the article for the Smithsonian, telling ghost stories in the winter is a British tradition that goes back centuries. Even Shakespeare himself mentioned the topic in, A Winter’s Tale, which he wrote in 1609-10.

If we think about how people spent their evenings before electricity and heat, they were most likely gathered around a fire. That would be a wonderful setting to tell ghost stories, especially with all the mysterious crackling a fire makes, and the wavering shadows that they cast.  <Shiver!>

Why Not in the US

So why didn’t all this merriment catch on in the US? Dickey explains that the Puritans did away with such things early on as they offended their belief system.

It’s said that Washington Irving, an 18th century writer living in the Hudson Valley outside of New York City, helped bring back several Christmas customs to the fledgling country, including the telling of ghost stories at Christmas. (You may know him more for his wonderful story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.)

The tradition really took off when Dickens’ story, A Christmas Carol, arrived on our shores. Other writers jumped at the chance to write ghost stories for Christmas until the Victorian world became a bit overrun with them.

It got to the point where Charles Dickens lamented having written his ghost stories. The problem was, his story combined the gothic world with human sentiment. As Dickey writes, “[He (Dickens) used] stories of ghosts and goblins to reaffirm basic bourgeois values; as the tradition evolved, however, other writers were less wedded to this social vision, preferring the simply scary.”

We see that today in just about all the ghost shows on TV. It’s all about the scare value, the gothic side of things. To be fair to them, they’re all searching for evidence of ghosts, not pretending to be telling a moral tale, but those shows do become tiresome after a while and the lack of more substance (human sentiment) is obvious.

Halloween’s Role

Time went by and social upheavals reinvented the American landscape – particularly the arrival of the Irish and Scottish immigrants. They brought their beliefs in the supernatural with them, mostly focused on the Fall pagan holiday, Samhain.

Eventually the supernatural and ghostly focus switched more to Halloween and over the years became more gruesome rather than a cautionary or moral tale.

I’m surprised at how many scholars would like to see the return of the sentimental ghost story as a regular Christmas tradition. It makes me wonder if scholars aren’t the only ones missing them.

Start Your Own Tradition

It might be fun to observe the much-loved Victorian tradition of reading or listening to ghost stories on Christmas Eve. I looked around for some ideas where to start. See what you think of these:

A Ghost Story for Christmas: This series comes from the BBC in Britain and it lasted from 1971 through 1978. They revived it in 2005 for a few more episodes. The episodes range from 30 minutes to 50 minutes long and are filmed in color.

According to Wiki, “The first five films are adaptations of stories from the four books by M.R. James. … The sixth film, The Signalman, is an adaptation of a story by Charles Dickens published in his magazine All the Year Round in 1866.”

There were two more episodes, one based on an original screenplay by television writer Clive Exton, and another by John Bowen who was a novelist and playwright.

Reclaiming the Carol: According to the website, “This story begins with the late Charles Dickens returning to find that A Christmas Carol, and the holiday it celebrates, has become overshadowed by glitz and commercialism in this touching story about the true meaning of Christmas.”

Just an hour long and shown on the Catholic channel EWTN which is available most everywhere these days.

You can also look-up the old stories that Dickens published in his magazine over the years, as well as those written back in the day by Washington Irving.

Having trouble finding them? Remember, you can always ask your local librarian for help and even suggestions as they are a font of useful information.

Let’s not forget all the versions of A Christmas Carol in the movies – we all have our favorite one!  If you want a particular treat, listen to Patrick Stewart read/ act the whole story as an audiobook. I think it may be on YouTube. It’s an incredible performance.

Well, I hope this gets you thinking and looking for ways to honor a tradition passed down by our ancestors.

If you have any suggestions for us to read or watch, please add them to the comments below, or email me (Susan) at visitcryptoville.com and I’ll share them with the folks.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a cozy, safe holiday season!

See you in the New Year!

Please be sure to come back and visit CryptoVille any time. We’ve got lots of articles about all sorts of things that should interest lovers of strange and mysterious creatures, as well as strange phenomena. The Search bar (near the top right corner of the home page) works very well.  There is also a list of categories further below that, which you can browse.

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References

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/plea-resurrect-christmas-tradition-telling-ghost-stories-180967553/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Ghost_Story_for_Christmas

https://979kickfm.com/why-are-scary-ghost-stories-in-a-christmas-song/

https://www.deseret.com/article/705363363  (This article appears to have been archived or lost.)

https://www.ewtn.com/tv

3 comments

  1. […] Which is why many people believe winter is the time when the dead return. In fact there is a fascinating tradition in England since the Victorian era where people tell Ghost Stories in Christmas time. A tradition I continue because I love a little Halloween in my Christmas. I believe the dead return in Winter time also. Here’s a great article by Cryptoville on that called The Ghosts of Christmas Past. […]

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