The Original Holiday Horror: A Christmas Carol

The Original Holiday Horror: A Christmas Carol 

by: Rachael Tamayo

 ‘Twas the night before Christmas… insert ghosts, monsters, bizarre themes, and chilling imagery here. Thankfully there is no shortage of classic holiday ghost stories; being the horror lovers that we are, we’d have it no other way. But the love of all things dark and spooky is not a new thing. It was a common theme in classic nineteenth-century literature, and Christmas tales were no exception. An article on Big Think goes as far as to say that it was a beloved tradition during the 1800s to gather around the fire and tell ghost stories. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters,” wrote Jerome k. Jerome in his 1891 anthology of ghost stories.

 Charles Dickens was no stranger to this, as we all know. In 1843, Charles Dickens penned and published what would become the epitome of past, present, and future Christmas tradition in the instant bestseller that came out December 18th, 1843. 

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