The Gist 23: Ghosts of Christmas Past

A meditation on the darkness of long winter nights

‘I wear the chain I forged in life,’ replied the Ghost. ‘I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?’”

— A Christmas Carol, Stave One: Marley’s Ghost

Winter Nights

The long tradition of oration to pass the time has its roots in the earliest cultures of humanity. As the nights grew longer and the air grew colder, it was more and more common to gather together, travelers in their taverns, families in their homes, huddled around the fire, bright flames flickering and casting shadows around the room. Like their ancestors before them, the stories they told centered around the concerns of the day, namely the weather and the inhospitable world they found themselves in. As darkness settled in, thoughts turned to the shadows and the bleak months ahead.

The tradition of telling ghost stories around the winter solstice reaches back into the spiritual traditions of Germanic and Nordic peoples. A time when the veil between our world and the next was thin, and the long march into bitter cold neared its end. The solstice was near. This was a time of reverence. Remembering those lost, and welcoming the new that would soon be on its way. It was a somber and reflective period.

Our minds on the facts of mortality and surrounded by the ominous ambiance of a disquieting stillness, it was only natural that we turn to stories of the paranormal to find meaning in the moment.

Victorian Reawakening

Owing largely to the immense success of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and the blossom of paranormal interest during the social revolution of the Victorian era, and with the abundance of printed material from which to pull fresh stories, Christmas once again became a popular time to tell ghost stories. We are aware of this in the lyrics of the 1963 classic The Most Wonderful Time of the Year which remembers:

There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories
Of Christmases long, long ago

It is clear that this tradition, which has been lost to the preferences of commercial and capitalist agendas, was a natural outgrowth of human nature, to share the essential and the existential whenever two or more were gathered together. It is our nature, indeed a compulsion, to illuminate the horrors and wonders, the mysteries and the moralities of the universe whenever the opportunity presents itself. Uninterrupted and keenly aware of the impending threats in the darkest, most inhospitable nights, the stories most well-adapted to the moment caused us to reflect on ourselves, our lives, and our purpose on this earth.

Modern Cinema

The tendency towards bringing horror to the holiday season has never left us. Black Christmas, Violent Night, and Silent Night Deadly Night, all centered around the modern interpretation, casting the commercial icon of Santa Claus in the role of murderous psychopath or unforgiving arbiter of justice, tell us something about ourselves. Where ancient peoples told tales of monsters in the woods, Victorians spoke of spirits and the afterlife, modern audiences are concerned with the issues of our world, the threats we encounter. We are far more likely to encounter a crush of frantic shoppers at the local mall than a pack of wolves on the trail home, but the dangers of the season remain.

New Traditions

My friends and I have taken to embracing our roots, writers, storytellers, and readers who found community by celebrating the Nordic tradition of Jólabókaflóð, or the "Christmas Book Flood," where books are exchanged as gifts on Christmas Eve, and the night is spent reading them, often with chocolate and warm drinks, creating a cozy, book-filled holiday. We incorporate a white elephant-style book exchange and celebrate togetherness with frivolity. This season, we have added the tradition of taking turns telling ghost stories. This macabre addition has done nothing to detract from the joy of the moment; in fact, it enhances it. Ghost stories, the paranormal, and the acknowledgement of our own mortality are tools employed by humanity for centuries to bring our attention to the now, focused, and aware of the moment. We are finite beings in a mysterious world, and our community, our shared bonds, are what protect us from this uncertainty. We may not be consciously thinking this while we utter inappropriate jokes during suggestive moments of the narrative, but on a deeper level, we are bonding, and this has always been the intention of story.

While virtually every member of this group is a horror fan or enthusiast with our own independent levels of fondness for the genre, the core concept of horror and specifically the paranormal, lends itself well to this moment of shared happiness. As we acknowledge the value of our bonds, we explore their importance via vicarious thrill, and in that, somewhere lies the meaning of it all.

Maybe our thoughts linger on those no longer with us, how we miss them, what they would be thinking now. Maybe we consider how many of these moments we have left. Perhaps, we allow ourselves to be present, immersed in the experience, somewhere reminded of the importance these events carry in our lives. Maybe we don’t think of these things concsciously but carry with us an intuitive awareness of its truth, Regardless, we know there is value here and we embrace it, encourage it and hold it close, tucked beneath our jackets as we venture into crisp December air, collars turned against the wind, back to our homes, our lives and our obligations for the coming season. Preparations are being made. A new year awaits, with more experiences, memories to be made, and challenges to be faced. We’ll lean on each other, look forward to opportunities for friendship, and tend to our bonds as our own stories unfold, and this Christmas will become one of many slipping into the past, a piece of our shared history, a legend to draw on when the time comes, to look on fondly when the sky gray and the warm air turns cold. We’ll look forward to them as a refuge in the harsh reality of winter, where darkness creeps in again, and we’ll remember that there is no monster or demon or ghost in that growing darkness that can extinguish the light we carry in our hearts. The flickering flame of Christmas Past.

"The world is not a cold place. It is a beautiful place, warmed by the fire of friendship." – Unknown