HELLO READERS
Gathering around a fire to share ghost stories was a beloved Christmas tradition in the late 1800s into the early 1900s. Victorians also sent bizarre Christmas cards with morbidly humorous designs featuring murderous frogs and anthropomorphic insects. They had the weirdest sense of human that has carried on until this day in many things.
Historically, Christmas Day has a close link to pre-Christian solstice festivals that viewed midwinter as a time when light dies and the veil between the world of the living and dead is almost transparent. Halloween isn’t the only time of year when the spirits of the departed come out to play. Every Christmas Time, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is as fragile as a Christmas paper hat and as thin as ice. Ghosts in Victorian gowns, lilac apparitions with parasols, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future all have their own stories to tell. The Victorians and their sentimental grief wreaths woven from a loved one’s hair, great story writers and narrators, together with their obsession of spiritualism, are famously known as the nineteenth century inventors of Christmas, which traditions we still honour today. It is perhaps with little wonder that the end of Victorianism almost exactly coincided with the invention of psychoanalysis and other conditions.
For centuries in Britain there was a tradition that is still carried on, of wiling away the long Christmas nights by huddling around the hearth and telling ghost stories. The scarier and spookier, the better. A Christmas Eve Ghost Story was eagerly awaited by both the listener and writers.
Many ancient Pagen festivals of Winter, such as Yule, feature death, spirit hauntings, mysticism and the supernatural. These were times of the year where families and communities would come together, tell stories and celebrate incorporating festive food, beautiful lighted candles, music, holly, ivy and mistletoe. This tradition endured and evolved over the centuries, and during the 17th century, writer, Robert Burton listed ‘Merry Tales’ of ‘Witches, Fairies and Goblins as a popular Christmas Eve pastime. But the yarns spun weren’t always jolly, and the tradition of the wizened old crones frightening people with haunting stories is an ancient and widespread one. The renowned Elizabethan playwright, Christopher Marlowe, speaks of story tellers weaving their magic of ‘Winter Tales’ of ‘Spirits and Ghosts’ that glide and haunt by night during the darkness. However, it was Charles Dickens, with his famous ghost story, A Christmas Carol, about Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley, written in 1843, who really helped to cement the popular association between the supernatural and Christmas. Many Victorians were superstitious and believed in haunted houses, the presence of spirits and holding regular seances in the hope of contacting their deceased loved ones. 1891, Jerome K. Jerome said it was inevitable that a group sitting by a fireside on Christmas Eve would regale one another with ‘authentic anecdotes of spectres, ghouls and all things haunted to entertain one another. There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas, something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, just as the dampness of the summer rains that bring out the frogs and snails out to play. Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there, but they are everywhere.
Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream and indoors the fireplace is brightly lit by a blazing Yule Log and chestnuts roasting by an open fire. A magical Christmas Tree decorated with festive baubles, stars, tinsel and Angels all contribute towards creating a wonderful Christmas Eve atmosphere. There’s a steaming mug in your hands, warming your heart, a friend seated across from you in a cosy chair reading from a book of Christmas Tales whilst a mystery festive tale begins unfolding that will take you well past the stroke of midnight when the first Ghost of Christmas Past appears, and so your journey into the unknown begins.
‘The ghost of Christmas yesteryear speaks of times gone by,
Of revelry, youthful merriment, when the house was never ‘dry’.
The ghosts whisper. But do you hear? Today, it’s different, and I’m older, too, But I can’t stop!
Oh, there’s so much to do.
The ghosts whisper. But do you hear? The ghost of Christmas now, speaks still, if him you let,
That the real meaning is to give, not get. The ghosts whisper. But do you hear? Today, it’s different, I seem to have mislaid,
That ‘feeling’ of love; Santa, I feel betrayed.
The ghosts whisper. But do you hear? The ghost of Christmas yet to come, a dark and mysterious spirit,
Tells you that the future is bright, it is what you make of it.
The ghosts whisper. But do you hear? Today, it’s different now, and tomorrow, too,
This Christmas, as always, is for others, and others will make it a Christmas for you.
The ghosts whisper. But do you hear? This year, draw aside and rest,
Listen to the three ghosts of Christmas and be blessed,
For the ghosts still whisper. But do you hear?’
Love and light, Linda and The Lulas xxx
