A Ghost Story For Christmas by T.E. Hodden
Perhaps like myself, you are fond of the traditional Christmas ghost story. It is a tradition that clings on, in books, cinema, and television, but one that has waned considerably these last few decades. We tend now to view ghost stories, and horror, as something more closely associated with Halloween.
I admit openly to being fond of a good Crimbo Chiller. I grew up with MR James and Dickens being forever associated with late night television, as Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Morning. The BBC for many years produced short films, based largely upon MR James’ tales, but with some Dickens and some modern stories, that have been revived on and off across the years. If you are unfamiliar with the tradition, my mention of Dickens has given you quite probably sent you thinking of A Christmas Carol, and given you quite the
wrong idea. Carol is story with ghosts, and with Christmas, but it is not the kind of story I mean. It has distinctly cold moments (such as the visions of lost souls weighed down by chains, walking London’s streets) but it is a warm story full of hope, love and cheer. We do not have to look far for more apt examples of a Crimbo Chiller. In the Pickwick papers, amongst the comedy and character pieces, and of course in The Haunted House, we can see Dickens effortlessly creating ghostly stories of dread, and unease, through a few well honed characters, their turns of phrase and simple mannerisms. The stories do not mistake shock, or violence, for horror, and instead produce lingering dread, and uncomfortable atmosphere. Indeed, Dicken’s The Signalman is one of the perfect examples of the best Christmas Eve stories. Perhaps drawing on his own experiences of a terrible railway incident, that cost many their lives, Dickens weaves, in a short page count, the tale of a man haunted by echoes of some great disaster yet to come. It is a human tale, of a man fearing the consequences of distraction, as he stands vigil over a railway tunnel, as an ethereal, unseeable presence reaches out to him through small noises. At first a nuisance, but soon building, inevitably, towards a terrible fate. The bleak, cold, lonely setting can seem, in term, quaint and beautiful, almost nostalgic, and then suddenly isolated and lonely.
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