Post by Graveyardbride on Dec 14, 2014 14:28:34 GMT -5
Ghost Stories for Christmas
It’s Christmastime again. The trees are trimmed, lights are twinkling and cookies are baking in the oven. But even at this time of year, the spirit realm is all around us.
During what Americans have come to call “The Holiday Season,” radio stations throughout the nation play Christmas music – some beginning the annual season before Thanksgiving – and one of the all-time favorites is “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by that old-time crooner, Andy Williams crooning. As he chronicles the many reasons why December brings about happy holiday tidings, there’s an odd line: “There’ll be scary ghost stories.” Christmas isn’t supposed to be scary, is it? Of course it is! Yuletide wouldn’t be complete without A Christmas Carol, the classic Charles Dickens tale about Ebenezer Scrooge and the four spirits (including Jacob Marley) who come to call on Christmas Eve.
The preface of the original publication of A Christmas Carol in 1843 alludes to Dickens’ love of a good ghost story: “I have endeavored in this ghostly little book, to raise the ghost of an idea, which shall not put my readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it,” signed “Their faithful friend and servant, C.D.”
When speaking of A Christmas Carol, we usually think of the three spirits who visit the miserly old Scrooge in his London home – the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future – forgetting it was Marley, his former business partner, who appeared first and set the stage for the supernatural encounter.
Dickens had an abiding interest in the otherworldly: According to Andrea Lloyd, curator of the 2012 Charles Dickens exhibit at the British Library in honor of the author’s 200th birthday, the beloved storyteller was “fascinated by the occult” and “a genius at evoking eerie atmosphere.” The exhibit explained the many ways in which Dickens used supernatural phenomena in his works, while placing them in the context of scientific, technological and philosophical debates of his time.
According to Lloyd, Dickens’ interest in the macabre was apparent from an early age. “As an adult he was caught up in ‘mesmeric mania’ that swept Britain and developed an interest in the ‘power of the human mind.’ He believed that all supernatural manifestations must have rational explanations, but his investigations into animal magnetism and psychology showed him that science could be as chilling as any ghost story. As a result, he became wonderfully adept at suspending readers between psychological and supernatural explanations in his fiction.” One might say the Victorian author would feel at home on the set of a modern-day horror movie.
The belief in spirits, ghosts, supernatural activity, or whatever you choose call it, has been around since the beginning of time. While it’s unlikely the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future will appear in your bedroom, don’t be surprised if you’re visited by a ghost or two in your thoughts or dreams this Christmas season.
Sources: Kelly Roncase, The South Jersey Times, December 14, 2014; and Carol Roberts, "A Dickens Christmas," The Echo, December 3, 1999.
