Last year at this time I did an article about the old tradition of telling scary stories at Christmas time (www.vintagehorror.com/node/25 ) This year I thought I’d feature a few others by various authors. I hope you all have a great and festive Christmas this year.
1. THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON by Charles Dickens (1836) – A grave digger who delights in dashing the festive spirit of others is confronted by a horde of goblins in the graveyard where he is working on Christmas Eve. They torment him and show him the error of his ways while leap-frogging tombstones and scaring him near to death. There are many similarities between this story and his classic A Christmas Carol which was published several years later (1843).
2. JERRY BUNDLER by W. W. Jacobs (1897) – In a coffee room a few days before Christmas, a group of travelers spend the day and on into the evening sharing ghost stories. One of the men tells of a ghost that haunts the very residence they are staying in. The story disturbs some who retire to bed. When one of the men decides to try and scare the others by dressing up as the ghost, all of them get a shocking surprise.
3. CHRISTMAS MEETING by Rosemary Timperley (1952) – A woman in her fifties spends her first Christmas alone. She reflects on past Christmases of her life from childhood on. A pale young man enters her room thinking it to be his own and stays to talk with her as he is also alone. He says he is a writer and begs her to read his work. She gets up to make them both some tea, but when she turns around he is gone. Later she finds an old copy of his book on the shelf of her room. The books belong to the landlord, and its discovery leads to a surprising and unusual twist.
4. THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT by Dorothy B. Bennett (?) – A nurse, alone and in charge of a hospital emergency ward on Christmas Eve, finds a magazine with a horrid stench and a severed bat wing stuck in it. It belongs to an ill patient who was once a doctor himself. The sick doctor traveled to less civilized corners of the world to learn ancient methods of healing. His own life is tied to the wing in the magazine.
5. O COME LITTLE CHILDREN by Chet Williamson (1989) – A young boy is strangely drawn to a thin, bedraggled Santa with a badly dyed beard at the farmers market. He begs to go see him again, but his parents refuse. When they have to return to the market to buy some last minute supplies, the boy disappears, sending his parents on a frantic search to find him. Who the Santa turns out to be and his purpose for being there is well conceived.
