# Christmas and "Scary Ghost Stories" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105 "2010-12-14T12:01:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ryan\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@Ryan\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_M)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/1 "2010-12-14T12:01:30Z")
I’ve always been baffled by that line in “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” claiming that there will be “scary ghost stories” and tales of glories, etc. Personally, I think the holidays could use a little horror, but that’s just me. Is there any truth to such a tradition? My friends say it must refer to Dickens’ ghosts, but “scary ghost stories” and “A Christmas Carol” seem a little attenuated to me. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/2 "2010-12-14T12:28:54Z")
It is a British tradition, often overlooked nowadays because they have imported Halloween “traditions” from the US and so have their spooks in the fall like normal people… ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/3 "2010-12-14T12:42:55Z")
Here’s one. [The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall](http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/WateGhos.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/4 "2010-12-14T12:49:46Z")
[Here’s](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=588727) another recent thread on this topic. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/5 "2010-12-14T12:52:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Here’s one. The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall I read that one as a kid (it was in one of those Alfred Hitchcock anthologies), but completely forgot that she appeared on Christmas. Unfortunately for my other question, she didn’t drown in a well… ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/6 "2010-12-14T15:55:34Z")
Christmas…where the ghost of Jesus Christ rises from the grave and terrorizes the living… {simpsons…probably butchered} ---
**Author:** ![legalsnugs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@legalsnugs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/legalsnugs)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/7 "2010-12-14T18:01:39Z")
Oh, come on. Christmas itself is based on a ghost story. You know, a young girl - a virgin - all alone in a room, suddenly visited, “overshadowed,” and ultimately impregnated, by a mysterious spirit. Can’t get much scarier than that. What? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/8 "2010-12-14T18:09:14Z")
We just had a thread about this. When my chorus was rehearsing that song, we decided it was a reference to “A Christmas Carol.” ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/9 "2010-12-14T20:55:36Z")
Dolly from _[the Family Circus](http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6136/xmas15.jpg)_ has a different take on the song ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/10 "2010-12-15T04:08:12Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Christmas…where the ghost of Jesus Christ rises from the grave and terrorizes the living… {simpsons…probably butchered} Are you sure? I don’t know enough Simpsons quotes to say, but there’s definitely a line from Family Guy where Peter says, “Christmas, that magical time of year where the ghost of Jesus Christ rises from the grave to feed off the flesh of the living.” ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/11 "2010-12-15T15:40:04Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Are you sure? I don’t know enough Simpsons quotes to say, but there’s definitely a line from Family Guy where Peter says, “Christmas, that magical time of year where the ghost of Jesus Christ rises from the grave to feed off the flesh of the living.” You are probably right. ---
**Author:** ![SleepyDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@SleepyDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SleepyDuck)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/12 "2010-12-18T07:09:59Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > You are probably right. Pwnd! ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/13 "2010-12-18T10:58:14Z")
Story-telling was a much more popular form of entertainment in the days radio (let alone television and the Internet), whether read aloud or recited from memory. Christmas has been associated with free time, time spent with family and friends, and therefore a good time to bring out the old stories. And ghost stories are entertaining and can be built around a suitable moral lesson, as “A Christmas Carol” certainly was. So I don’t think it’s a mystery… Here in Troll Country, Easter brings a long break from work and school, and is associated with board games, knitting, and mystery novels. None of them have anything to do with the Christian festival or with the imminent arrival of spring, but they are things people like to do when they have the time, brought out when the calendar gives people the time. Same idea with ghost stories and old-time Christmases in Britain. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/14 "2010-12-18T11:32:07Z")
There are more than eight words to that song?! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-and-scary-ghost-stories/564105/15 "2011-05-01T22:52:34Z")
Sorry to resurrect a ziombie (ghost?) thread, but I have what appears to be one solution to the OP’s question. I’ve been reading _The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman_ by Washington Irving. It contains _Rip Van Winkle_ and _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ and, while I’m familiar with both stories, I’m not sure if I’d read the originals – at least in their entirety. And I know I’d never read the other stories in it. I’[d heard that Irving’s stories about Christmas in this book inspred Charles Dickens’ _A Christmas Carol_. Having read them, I have to agree. More on that later. first, though, of the four or five pieces devoted to Christmas (depending how you count), the last, “The Christmas Dinner”, contains accounts of people telling ghost stories at the Christmas dinner: > [@](#): > > …I am half-inc;lined to think that the old gentlemean was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the country., and pore over black-letter tracts, so often filled with the marvelous and supernatural. He gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of the neighboring peasantry, concerning the effigy of the crusader [described earlier] , which lay on the tomb of the church altar. As it was the only monument of the kind in that part of the country, it had always been regarded with feelings of superstition by the good wives of the village. It was said to get up from the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard on stormy nights, particularly when it thundered… > > … > > From these and other anecdotes that followed, the crusdaer appeared to be the favorite hero of the ghost stories throughout the vicinity… > … > All these superstitions I found had been much countenanced by the squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. He listened to every goblin tale of the neighboring gossips with infinite gravity, and held the porter’s wife in high favor on account of her talent for the marvelous… I’ surprised to find how muchmaterial there was for “A Christmas Carol” here – the description of the God, Old-Fashioned Christmas, with its conviviality and song, the visit to one’s boyhood village, the boyhood love of Christmas break, the way people change through time from lively, lusty passionate youths to dried-up older people, the games of blind-man’s bluff, and so on.