Spooky people know that in days past it was traditional to tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve. It really is a wonderful night for ghost stories, when you think about it. It gets dark really early, businesses are closed and the streets are quiet and empty, and your family is probably all gathered together wondering how to occupy themselves.
I'm probably not going to be able to induce anyone to read a short story aloud to the family, but how about viewing a short, made-for-TV, film together? From 1971 until 1978, the BBC produced a special ghost story for their viewers on Christmas Eve (called
A Ghost Story for Christmas.) The short films are generally less than an hour long and are based on short stories from veteran ghost story writer M. R. James. Charles Dickens also makes an appearance with his ghost story "Railway Signalman."
Most of the episodes can be watched for free on
YouTube if you search for
A Ghost Story for Christmas/BBC. These are family-friendly ghost stories, so while spookiness reigns supreme there really isn't any gore or violence. You're not going to have any nightmares as they tend to be Victorian Gothic rather than John Carpenter. I've watched a few of them and enjoyed the retro 1970's film style. What I'm saying is keep your lights and your expectations low.
The show is also available through places like Amazon as a six DVD collection. The series was revived briefly between 2005 and 2013 and we can only hope it will come back again. In the meantime, we have some catching up to do! Let's bring back the tradition of telling ghost stories this Christmas Eve.
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