Ghost stories on Christmas?

In August, I found the book "Told After Supper" from 1891 by Jerome K. Jerome in whose introduction he wrote “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.”

Photo by Phil Robson via Unsplash

Yes, there was the Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve, and although it's not a tradition that has really been kept alive, it's still very much being talked about, even in countries where it has never been practiced.
Take the USA. Ghosts get their exclusive time slot on Hallowe'en, and although a lot of Christmas traditions of today brought into the country by immigrants go back to old times, ghost stories are not among them. And yet there is a line in the 1963 song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" going "There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago."

Picture from "Told After Supper"
by Kenneth M. Skeaping

Christmas has always been connected with superstitions.
In German, we call the twelve days of Christmas "Rauhnächte" (mostly, some start counting on the winter solstice). The etymology is unclear, it could mean "hairy", but also refer to smudging the stables with frankincense to protect the animals from the demons and ghosts prowling the land during those nights.
Of course, there are also the tales of the Wild Hunt.
It is also said that animals can speak during those nights and tell the future. Another version is that the animals can speak at midnight on Christmas, just for one hour to announce the birth of Christ. You are not allowed to listen, though, or you will die.
There are many more mid-winter traditions, such as the quite scary Krampus or Perchten, some of which have become more popular again
So ghost stories on Christmas Eve don't even sound that unusual anymore, do they?

Picture from "Told After Supper"
by Kenneth M. Skeaping

If I asked you which Christmas ghost story comes to mind first, it would be a rather safe bet to say you'd pick "A Christmas Carol" from 1843.
It was around this time that Christmas traditions were re-evaluated in Britain, but also new ones introduced, such as Christmas cards and trees (the first tree was put up by Queen Charlotte, by the way, although the idea only got popular due to Albert and Victoria).
When we think of British Christmas, our first thoughts probably go to the images ingrained in our heads thanks to countless adaptations of Dickens's novella - images of generosity, family gatherings, special food, drink, and games. And singing Muppets (after I finally got to watch them last year).

It wasn't the first Christmas story Dickens wrote and he also wasn't the first one to write one.
It also wasn't his last ghost story. The Christmas issues of the magazines he edited, first "Household Words", then "All the Year Round", also had ghost stories every year.
The Victorian ghost story's roots lie in a superstitious rural culture which it brings to the more secular and modern times of the industrial revolution in a nostalgic way. It also takes ghosts from castles inside the private home implicating that everyone can be haunted. That seems to have hit a nerve with the readers and other publications followed Dickens's example.
By the way, "somewhere between 50% to 70% of Christmas ghost stories published in the Victorian era were written by women".

Picture from "Told After Supper"
by Kenneth M. Skeaping

So yeah, why don't you give it a try this Christmas Eve?
Gather the family round, pick a nice Victorian ghost story from the vast selection (check out this bibliography for example and see what you can find online) and enjoy.
Maybe it will become your new favorite Christmas tradition!

"Christmas Story-telling" by Sir John Everett Millais (Illustrated London
News, Christmas Supplement, December 20, 1862, p. 672)

Sources:

1. Colin Dickey: A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories. In: Smithsonian Magazine, December 15, 2017
2. Josie Q.: Christmas Ghosts: A Victorian Tradition. On: A Biblioteca Noturna, December 14, 2021
3. Caley Ehnes: "Winter Stories - Ghost Stories... Round the Christmas Fire": Victorian Ghost Stories and the Christmas Market. In: Illumine, 11, 2012, 1, pages 6 - 25 (published in 2014, https://doi.org/10.18357/illumine.ehnesc.1112012)
4. Simon Cooke: Victorian Ghost Stories. On: The Victorian Web, June 2021