“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”
This line has always struck me as odd. Has anyone told or been told ghost stories during Christmas (outside of “A Christmas Carol”)? Or is this the green bean casserole of Christmas? :dubious:
There’s an older thread about this if you look it up, but apparently ghost stories are a Christmas tradition in England, where they never got around to inventing a separate holiday for that sort of thing.
The existence of this book:
demonstrates that the tradition once flourished. Never since I was a kid, but with television and such, creating your own entertainment around a fire kind of went out the window.
See there for other responses.
Apparently, according to the wiki page I stumbled on after finding one of the movies, there were even a few years during the 70s/2005 where they made a bunch of ghost-themed tv movies to air on one of their channels specifically at Christmastime. To my disappointment, they didn’t seem to be ghost stories set during Christmas, though.
edit: the wiki page
Minewas older. 
I just wanted to add another “Christmas Ghost Story” not yet mentioned (even in the older threads) – Dickens’ last Christmas Book is The Man Who Haunted Himself, a sort of retread Christmas Carol. (One year I read all of Dickens’ Christmas Books. Although I love the original Christmas Carol, it was sheer torture to work my way through the others. )
By the way, a related ghost question – In Gordon Lightfoot’s “If you could read my mind”, he talks about “an old time movie about a ghost from a wishing well”. The only old-time movie with a ghost (ghosts, actually) from a well is the Abbott and Costello flick The Time of their Lives. If that’s the one he meant, it’s completely against the imagery he’s trying to set up. Are there any other movies with wishing well ghosts?
The Ring is close, but came long after the song. Supposedly it’s based on a Japanese folktale though.
He may have been just using the line to be evocative.
But The Time of Their Lives is not your typical A&C move. It has no shtick, and next to no slapstick. Costello plays a relatively serious part, and the plot involves him being trapped in the well as a ghost and unable to join his lover in heaven. The whole dramatic impetus is about him being set free to join her, so it fits in nicely with the rest of the lyrics.
Now, you kids…
next to no slapsticjk!!!
Have you seen this movie? I grew up on it. There’s plenty of slapstick. I’ll grant that it’s a bit more serious than their others, and it’s certainly not typical of the oeuvre, with little direct interaction (except in the opening, “historical” part) and none of their vaudeville one-on-one routines, but a serious evocative flick this ain’t.
In the 1972 film Tales from the Crypt, there’s a story featuring an escaped homicidal maniac in a Santa suit. Must be something like that.
Someone brought up this question when my chorus was rehearsing this song. We decided it was a reference to A Christmas Carol.
Oh, yes–the Santa Claus who liked to slay belles…
There’s far less slapstick than in most A&C films, and I’d even go as far to say that it’s more a romantic film than a comedy. There are a handful of sight gags when Costello discovers he’s a ghost, and his kicking Abbott, but most of the rest of it is played pretty straight as a character story with a light touch. Abbott plays it all straight, and Costello’s humor is secondary to the drama in the scenario.
It’s hard to make a case for slapstick humor in a film where the main characters are killed and their bodies tossed down a well, and are then condemned to live as ghosts in limbo in the most stark method possible.
There’s nothing resembling their vaudeville-based work, either.
And, yes, I’ve seen the film quite a few times, too. I think it’s A&C’s best film by far.