The Ghosts of Midwinter
Christmas isn’t just about carols and cocoa—once upon a time, it was also about ghosts.
Many of us, toward the end of the year, as homes are decorated, fireplaces lit, and spiced cider, hot cocoa, or mulled wine poured into mugs, revisit our favorite holiday books, songs, and movies. While the debate rages on about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie (it is), everyone probably agrees that It’s a Wonderful Life is. And while it’s highly unlikely that anyone will be snuggled under a blanket watching Poltergeist or The Haunting, or reading The Shining during this holiday season, ghost stories were once a Christmas staple, reaching their peak of popularity in Victorian England.
The precise origin of telling ghost stories near the end of the year is unknown, largely because it began as an oral tradition without written records. According to Sara Cleto, a folklorist specializing in British literature and co‑founder of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic, the season around the winter solstice has long been one of transition and change. “For a very, very, very long time, the season has provoked oral stories about spooky things in many different countries and cultures all over the world.”
Spooky storytelling also gave people something to do during the long, dark evenings before central heating. After the last harvest and food preservation were complete, winter nights meant more leisure hours spent huddled close to a fire, where ghost stories became standard entertainment.
In Victorian England, the telling of supernatural tales on Christmas Eve shifted from oral tradition to printed trend, thanks to the steam‑powered press that made books more available and affordable. Higher literacy rates and cheaper printing costs drove up demand for periodicals, and many editors realized that converting old storytelling traditions into print was a goldmine—especially in winter.
Although countless trends made their way from England to America during the Victorian era, ghost stories at Christmas never really caught on here. That changed somewhat in 1843 when Charles Dickens published his famous tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his spectral visitors. A Christmas Carol was an immediate best‑seller in the United States, but Dickens was already wildly popular, so its success likely owed more to his fame than to Americans’ appetite for supernatural Christmas tales. While it didn’t usher in a new tradition, it did inspire at least 20 major American films based on the novella.
It wasn’t until 1993, with the release of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, that we had a mainstream film consciously echoing the tradition of ghostly or uncanny tales at Christmastime. By merging Halloween’s macabre with Christmas cheer, Burton reintroduced the uncanny into American holiday cinema, reminding audiences that “Christmas can be spooky too.”
So, this year, as you sip your cocoa, remember: Christmas isn’t only about cheer—it’s also about chills.