Skip to main content

5 Ghost Stories Perfect for the Holidays; Year End Book Sale

An illustration of a skull wearing a Santa Claus hat.
Credit: Pixabay.com


This is supposed to be the happiest time of the year. But, in some cases, it can be the scariest. A year is ending and so that may bring anxiety over the year to come since we don't know what it will bring. It almost feels a bit apocalyptic, doesn’t it? But with the end of the year comes end of the year sales and so you'll find my books at some super discounts at Smashwords which I'll explain more about later. But let’s start off something that goes with the dark winter nights that the Holiday Season, or maybe I should say, the Hallowday Season brings: scary stories. Yes scary, stories of the supernatural. What we call holiday horror stories today, what the Victorian English called Christmas Ghost Stories in the 19th century! And so I have a list of Holiday ghost stories for you below.


5 Ghost Stories for Winter Holiday Reading

In general, ghost stories aren't associated with Christmas like they are with Halloween. But because this has been a time of the year in the western world where days are shortest and so nights are longest, the Victorian English had a tradition of telling ghost stories on those cold, dark December nights. Why during the Christmas season of all seasons? Besides the cold dark nights serving as the perfect setting for telling scary tales, perhaps the fear of what the new year might bring and so the end of the old year also set the mood for stories about fear of the unknown. And, in my opinion, it still does that today. 

So, below are the dark, mostly short, stories of the supernatural that I've been reading this season or have read past holiday seasons and so plan to read again. We in the English-speaking parts of the world already know that Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is classic Holiday ghost story telling. So, that’s not on this list. However, there are a couple of Dickens' lesser known Christmas ghost stories, and others by authors less known to our consumer American society that sells and buys Christmas more than celebrates it. 


1. "The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton", Charles Dickens: An old grave digger sees no good in humanity and so no need to celebrate Christmas. So, he stays behind in the graveyard to work on Christmas Eve and, because of this, goblins show up and terrorise him. This story has a lot of similarities to “A Christmas Carol”, which came later, but it's still its own thing.

2. "The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain", Charles Dickens: At Christmas, a chemist makes a deal with a ghost to take away all memory of his past mistakes and bad experiences. The ghost does this, but it brings anything but peace of mind to the chemist. 

3. "Martin's Close", M.R.James: Warning: Potential spoiler in this description. This story by the author who wrote "Casting the Runes", (which we reviewed along with its movie adaption in October's Book-To-Movie review) is about a murderer who is stalked by the ghost of his victim at Christmastime. There may be no new year for this guy--if the ghost doesn't get him, the noose will. 

4. "The Haunted Doll's House", M.R. James: It's not particularly a Christmas ghost story but because doll houses are so traditionally common under the Christmas tree for little girls, I thought I'd read this one for the season. The story is exactly what the title says, but it's how and why the doll house is haunted is what's really scary about it.

5. "The Gargoyle's Song", Alan Rodgers: This story by a Stoker Award-winning author is about a commercial artist who gets a visit from a gargoyle at Christmas. The strange thing is that the gargoyle's been right outside her New York apartment window ever since before she moved in. 


Want more suggestions for horror Holiday reading? Check out my 2017 post featuring "Krampus's List of 6 Tales of Terror Toys!"  



1960s-style illustration of a woman standing on a staircase observing a Christmas tree.
Credit: Pixabay.com


Smashwords End of Year Sale

It's the most expensive time of the year! So, save some bucks on your Holiday gift shopping! My books are available as part of the Smashwords 2023 End of Year Sale. You can get my short fiction collection, "The Fool's Illusion", for half-price and my other books are free! Take advantage of these and other amazing promotions on thousands of indie titles from now through January 1, 2024. Find your or a loved one's next favourite book at https://smashwords.com/shelves/promos.


This will be the last post of the year, but by no means the last ever! I'll be back again with another post to begin the new year next month but because New Year's falls on a Monday when we normally have our blog posts here at the Fantastic Site, it may not be until that Tuesday after and so one day late. And as you may have guessed, because this will be the last post of the year there will not be a Book-To-Movie (BTM)  review for this month. I apologise, but I’ve been so busy with the holiday rush that I have not had time to read anything that has a movie adaptation. So, the BTM will be back next month on the fourth Monday. By then I should have something read and it's movie adapation watched.

Do you have any scary Holiday story suggestions to add to the above list? If so, drop them in the box below!

Have a Happy Hallowday Season!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book-To-Movie: Stephen King’s 'The Raft'

Credit: Pixabay.com It's the third Saturday of the month and so that means it's time for another Book-To-Movie ! In a Book-To-Movie we review a book and its movie adaptation. One of the reasons I as a horror fan don’t read a lot of Stephen King’s work is because most of it consists of novels that go more than 400 pages. I have a short attention span when it comes to reading, ironically since I consider myself an avid reader, and so I normally won’t read a work that is much more than the equivalent to a 350-page mass market paperback. The other reason why I don’t read a lot of King’s work is that, as literary scholars will tell you, a lot of his writing is poor. However, he does have some good writing in his works, especially his earlier stuff, including his short horror tales. So if I read anything by Stephen King it’s usually his short stories or novellas. One of his collections I’ve read is Skeleton Crew which includes some of his good, or at least...
3 comments
Read more

Book-To-Movie: Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Black Cat'

Credit: Wikimedia Commons It's another fourth Monday of the month and so that means it's time for another Book-To-Movie review! In a Book-To-Movie (BTM), we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. A few years back, we had a BTM for Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat" and its movie adaptation. However, the movie we reviewed was actually a segment in Roger Corman’s anthology film, "Tales of Terror", which features three of Poe's short stories, including "Black Cat". And I'll tell you now, I liked that version far more than the version that we're going to review today which is the 1934 Universal adaptation starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. I like Corman's version better mostly because it stays more faithful to the original short story than Universal's does. However, even though Universal's "Black Cat", directed by Edgar Ulmer, strays (excuse the pun) far from Poe's short stor...
2 comments
Read more

Book-To-Movie: ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’

Both the 1959 and the 2008 movies based on Jules Verne's novel, "Journey to the Center of the Earth", feature terrifying monsters such as the ones here in this illustration from an early edition of the book. Credit: Édouard Riou/ Wikimedia Commons   Warning: This review may contain spoilers. As I said last post , I’ve postponed the month’s Book-To-Movie review from last week to this week. For those of you who are just tuning into this blog, a Book-To-Movie is when we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. And this weekend’s review is of Jules Verne’s novel, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and its movie adaptations. There have been several movies based on this novel that was originally published in Paris in 1864 (as “Voyage au Centre de la Terre”). However, most of them have been either made for TV or video. Because I believe movies are best when made for the big screen, I am going to review the theatrical films in which there have been two: the 195...
4 comments
Read more