Five Christmas Ghost Stories
by H.J. Dutton
Merry Christmas, everyone! In preparation for the 25th, this week I’ll discuss a niche yet increasingly popular subgenre. Recent holiday horror films such as Krampus (2015), the second Black Christmas reboot (2019), and this year’s reboot of Silent Night, Deadly Night would have audiences assume that the subversion of holiday cheer in the genre is a recent phenomenon. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, older forms of the holiday have more in common with modern Halloween traditions than they do the modern form of Christmas we were brought up with. Hell, Saint Nick himself didn’t become the face of Christmas until the mid-19th century. The red iteration of the jolly old man we know today wasn’t popularized until the 30s through Coca-Cola ad campaigns.
Before the old man, there were monsters. A lot of monsters. The iconic Krampus – a demonic satyr-like figure of Alpine folklore who beats and kidnaps naughty children – is believed to have predated the modern Santa Claus by two centuries. Then there’s Belsnickel, Pere Fouettard, Le Befana, Frau Perchta, Gryla, Hans Trapp, Lussi, the Kallikantzaroi, the Yule Cat, and many more. Christmas has always had its dark side, one the modern, sanitized holiday cheer has yet to fully expunge. Christmas creepiness has been preserved by the horror genre through the 19th and 20th centuries and beyond, most famously through Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). The following five stories illustrate a brief history of the mission to keep that holiday fear alive.
The Old Nurse’s Story – Elizabeth Gaskell (1852)
Gaskell began her career in the short story form in the mid-19th century, fueled by grief over the loss of her son. While her novels launched her into the public eye, I still believe her true mastery lay in the short story. She demonstrates it in “The Old Nurse’s Story,” one of her many lauded contributions to the tradition of Christmas ghost stories. In it, a nurse reflects on the days she spent tending to a young orphan in the notorious Furnivall Manor. The building’s troubled history – as in many stories of the Gothic tradition – comes howling back into the present with a vengeance.
You can read the full story here.
Between the Lights – E.F. Benson (1912)
One of three author siblings (A.C. and R.F.), Benson wrote in a wide range of forms, such as short stories, comedies, memoirs, and biographies. His most influential works, however, were his contributions to the horror genre. Benson’s approach to horror mirrors that of his contemporary, author and Cambridge scholar M.R. James, in that it relies on a slow, arduous, yet rewarding build-up of dread. This story follows socialite Everard Chandler as he spoils the mood of his own Christmas dinner by recounting a run-in with dark forces. In no time at all, the empty rooms and halls of the Chandler house are filled with the potential threat of things that go bump.
You can read the full story here.
Lucky’s Grove – H.R. Wakefield (1940)
Wakefield is one of the best – if not my favorite – contributors to the folk horror genre. Where other authors try to throttle you with raw depictions of bloody rites and sacrifices, Wakefield exercises his confidence in the reader through the power of suggestion and implication. His stories are not loud; they don’t harangue the reader with sensory overload. Rather, Wakefield populates his work with leering townsfolk, whispering trees, and houses whose innards echo with creaks and groans and phantoms. Wakefield illustrates this masterful restraint in “Lucky’s Grove,” in which taking an evergreen from a sacred plot of land has disastrous consequences.
This story is collected in The Clock Strikes Twelve (1946).
The Chimney – Ramsey Campbell (1977)
Campbell made a career writing about horror in contemporary working class England. An indirect disciple of Benson and James, he approaches horror with a similar philosophy, employing creeping dread and the uncanny to get under the reader’s skin. Though he’s most well-known for his many contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos, I think it’s Campbell’s ghost stories that demonstrate the height of his writing prowess. This story, which won a World Fantasy Award in 1978, follows a narrator who, as a child, developed a crippling fear of Santa Claus. Exacerbating the issue is the old chimney in his bedroom. This is by far the best evil santa story I’ve ever read. The build-up, while slow, is impeccable, and its ending hits like a punch to the jaw.
You can listen to the full story here.
Dark Christmas – Jeanette Winterson (2013)
What began as an act of rebellion amid her strict Pentecostal upbringing would later morph into a career for Winterson when she left home at age sixteen. Primarily, she writes genre-bending fiction, blending elements of fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism. Her contribution to the tradition of Christmas ghost stories follows a woman who, while spending Christmas in an old, rotting house, hears something in the attic. Her investigation uncovers wartime echoes whose horrors still ring, raw and ugly, through the here and now.
You can read the full story here.
