• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Christmas and Ghost Stories

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
I'm a little unsure if this is the place for it, although it is kind of current and I'm sure it doesnt belong in any other part of the forum more than here but what's the deal with Christmas and Ghost Stories?

I looked into this following the latest adaptation of Christmas Carol by Dickens, I love the story, I've loved almost all of the adaptations and some of the modern retellings, such as Bill Murray's movie Scrooged, and apparently there are other ghost stories, including MR James' stories, I tihnk one is actually called A Ghost Story For Christmas.

Is it because of the spiritual or religious significance of the season and the religious or spiritual significance of ghosts and ghost stories? Is this a tradition you were aware of or not?
 

matmos

Active member
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
Messages
1,714
MBTI Type
NICE
A "little unsure". Surely not?
Is it because of the spiritual or religious significance of the season and the religious or spiritual significance of ghosts and ghost stories? Is this a tradition you were aware of or not?
Or have you got a gerbil stuck up your ass hole?
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
The links between Christmas and Ghost Stories?

This is something I've only just become aware of lately, rereading the woman in black and then researching a hint at the beginning of it that there is a tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas, apparently Dickens was writing for this market when he composed A Christmas Carol and he wasnt really an innovator of the idea.

It was totally new to me did anyone else know of this being a Christmas tradition and why would it be? I'm a little baffled, mind you one of the people I enquired with told me something along the lines that its a Christmas as mulled wine and oranges with cloves dotted all over both of which I didnt know where associated with Christmas at all either (oranges with cloves all over?).
 

Eric B

ⒺⓉⒷ
Joined
Mar 29, 2008
Messages
3,621
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
548
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I guess it was something you did around a fireplace, and that became specifically associated with Christmas because of the cold, the chestnuts roasting, etc.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
I guess it was something you did around a fireplace, and that became specifically associated with Christmas because of the cold, the chestnuts roasting, etc.

It could be.

I like the idea and I like it as you describe it. Thanks. :)
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
What is the association between Christmas and ghost stories?

What is the association between Christmas and ghost stories?

I only realised this reading the woman in black and never really associated Christmas Carol with ghost stories because I thought of the ghosts in it as spirits rather than ghosts.

I've read a little and it appears that ghost stories after dinner or at the fireplace are a tradition. Does anyone tell ghost stories at Christmas or are you aware of this tradition?
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
Christmas and Ghosts

Has anyone noticed the associations of Christmas and Ghosts? I think this is more of a victorian or years and years ago thing because I never noticed it, apart from Dicken's Christmas Carol, but apparently the telling of Ghost Stories, after dinner and accompanied by drinks and eating oranges IS a Christmas tradition.

Has anyone done this or does anyone do this?
 

Galena

Silver and Lead
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
3,786
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
No, I didn't know this. And that is a shame.

Way cool.
 

Thalassa

Permabanned
Joined
May 3, 2009
Messages
25,183
MBTI Type
ISFP
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sx
Fall and Winter I think inspire a recognition of death and introspection in general, where as spring and summer inspire thoughts of rebirth and activity.
 

Lady_X

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 27, 2008
Messages
18,235
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
784
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
no never but i shall start!
 

/DG/

silentigata ano (profile)
Joined
Mar 19, 2009
Messages
4,602
My! Halloween isn't even over yet and we're already talking about Christmas?

Anyway, no I haven't heard of telling ghost stories on Christmas. It would guess it was a pagan tradition, though.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

Up the Wolves
Joined
Jul 24, 2008
Messages
19,444
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
I wondered what the "scary ghost stories" line was about in the song '"most wonderful time of the year". I always assumed it was a reference to Dickens.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
My! Halloween isn't even over yet and we're already talking about Christmas?

Anyway, no I haven't heard of telling ghost stories on Christmas. It would guess it was a pagan tradition, though.

No, it aint pagan.
 

kyuuei

Emperor/Dictator
Joined
Aug 28, 2008
Messages
13,964
MBTI Type
enfp
Enneagram
8
Wiccans especially--Christmas is a more solemn time of year.

Halloween is the one happily celebrated--with bridges between the living and dead created for a single night.

In comparison, Christmas is the time of year that mother earth slumbers and sleeps, and the world rots away to cold and ash. I mean, if you think about it--it's cold, and dark, and you've got fires going, and it's a sleepier and grave time of year. More people tended to die during this time of year back then too.

I think that the Christmas as we know it now and the pagan traditions of old are forever married to each other--as they had to to convince pagans to convert. Ghost stories for Christmas seems like a no-brainer for me in that context.

As for my personal experience--I say the Halloween spirit never really leaves our family until just before Christmas day hits.
 

Cellmold

Wake, See, Sing, Dance
Joined
Mar 23, 2012
Messages
6,266
I love Autumn and Winter so much.

Spring is ok and summer is just a death for me.
 

Galena

Silver and Lead
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
Messages
3,786
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Apparently, I said this juxtaposition was cool last year. Aesthetically, IMO, the warm aesthetics of the holiday benefit from a bite like spookiness. :D

I think the intent of the central Christmas lore (mythology and the classic literature about Christmas) was to be about spirits in the more religious way, but in more popular and comical parlance, "spirit" translates easily into "ghost". People made that short leap and enjoyed it.

The above article puts it well.
 
Top