And yet dark, sultry days also make for perfect conditions for atmospheric tales of a ghostly persuasion. The oral tradition of spooky stories told while huddled around the fire – not only a source of heat, but also of light amid the gloom – goes back hundreds of years. But it was the Victorians who really cemented the festive ritual of tales of the supernatural, in part thanks to the advent of the steam-powered printing press making the written word vastly more available to the masses.
Writing in The Spectator, Caroline Moore tell us, ‘Christmas Eve, traditionally, was the time to swap ghost stories — drawing upon the early Christian notion that spirits and demons had a peculiar freedom on the night before an especially holy day. Halloween, the night before All Hallows or All Saints day, has now usurped this licence; but in Victorian times, as Jerome K. Jerome remarked: ‘The average orthodox ghost does his one turn a year, on Christmas Eve, and is satisfied.’
Dickens, of course, remains the king of the yuletide ghost story genre, thanks to his immortal creation of the miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol; indeed, Christmas without a re-reading his tale of redemption – or at least viewing one of the scores of adaptations – would hardly be Christmas.
But there are other ghost stories available too. Here, we round up a few of our favourite spine-tinglers for a truly atmospheric Christmas Eve.
Between the Lights by E. F. Benson
Those familiar with novelist EF Benson most likely know him as the writer of Mapp And Lucia, the sublimely arch comic series about society rivalry, machinations and one-upmanship in Tilling, a town based on Rye in East Sussex. But before he came to write these exemplary social comedies, he was best known for his ghost stories. And though they are seldom read these days, that is no reason not to do so. As Nicholas Lezard writing in The Guardian says, ‘Benson’s monsters tend to be enormous slug-like creatures, grey and faintly luminous, acting as the terrible instruments of God’s wrath. As vehicles for giving readers the willies, they are most effective.’ Between The Lights is the perfect tale for the festive period. First published in 1912, it is set in a large country house where the owner gathers his guests together to tell ghost stories – whereupon he decides to regale them with a chilling tale of his own unsettling Christmas past. Why not revert to the oral tradition and listen to it on Audible here? Otherwise you can buy it here.
The Dead Of Winter: Ten Classic Tales for Chilling Nights
New for this year comes this compendium of spooky tales, within whose covers are contained ten tales to make your spine tingle. With stories from Lennox Robinson, M. Burrage, Ruth Rendell, E.F. Benson, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Russell Wakefield, M.R. James, Margaret Irwin, Algernon Blackwood and W.W. Jacobs, prepare to be regaled with chilling yarns spun by the occupant of an ancient tomb, and a guest troubled by sinister dreams, amongst others. Buy it.
Dark Christmas by Jeanette Winterson
Footsteps in an empty attic. The sudden unexplained appearance of a manger. A supposedly idyllic Christmas remote holiday rental that turns out to be anything but. Jeanette Winterson’s haunting tale was published on Christmas Eve 2013 in The Guardian and remains the perfect contemporary short ghost story to read aloud and spook family and friends with this Yuletide. Read it here.
Smee By AM Burrage
First published in 1931, the succinct tale of Smee – a variant on the game of hide-and-seek – is unsettling, menacing and disturbing: exactly the trio of emotions lovers of ghost tales are ever hoping to elicit around the fireplace. When a guest in a haunted house tells the other visitors about a girl who died playing hide-and-seek, he suggests a variant called Smee instead. As one might expect, things go awry – especially as they discover they have one player too many. Buy it.
The Whistling By Rebecca Netley
The Whistling is the haunting tale of Elspeth Swansome, a nanny whose job takes her to the remote Scottish island of Skelthsea, where she meets her charge, Mary, a troubled young girl who has not spoken for months. But that is not the only mystery the house holds: there is also the death of Mary’s twin brother of which no one speaks. And then there are the hypnotic lullabies that reverberate down empty corridors and the strange dolls that appear in abandoned room. Shudder. Buy it.
Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories
An unusual and often chilling collection of fourteen ghost stories selected by the king of the gruesome himself, Roald Dahl. They include work from LP Hartley, the aforementioned EF Benson and Edith Wharton, as well as Robert Aickman’s utterly terrifying Ringing The Changes. As the great man himself wrote, ‘Spookiness is the real purpose of the ghost story. It should give you the creeps and disturb your thoughts . . .' Mission accomplished. Buy it.
By Nancy Alsop
Updated December 2023
