We can thank Charles Dickens for codifying the tradition of telling ghost stories around Christmas time. It was already a tradition in England and the United States, to spend the long nights gathered around the hearth sipping tea and cocoa swapping spooky tales, but once Dickens put Marley’s ghost in print it became a craze.
Today, Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol is about all that survives of this once-trendy tradition. But I think the tradition deserves a revival.
And so, I offer my own small contribution with a short Christmas ghost story to celebrate the season: It was Christmas Eve. I don’t remember the year, and, in fact, the year really doesn’t matter.