The Best Ghost Stories for Christmas Eve

For years whenever the Christmas carol “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” played on the radio, I was confused by the lyrics “there’ll be scary ghost stories.” It seemed out of place for a Christmas song until I read an article many years later that explained that reading ghost stories on Christmas Eve used to be a tradition in the Victorian era.

 

 

 

It was a surprising thing to learn. I thought it was strange that the only hint I could find of its existence had been in a Christmas song (which I guess in hindsight made sense), but since learning that I’ve made my own tradition of reading a ghost story on Christmas Eve. And I thought you might like some to read yourself this Christmas season.

 

Here are my favorites.

 

 

A Christmas Carol is a classic and probably one of the best known Christmas ghost stories. On Christmas Eve night the cold and miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley who warns him that he awaits a similar, horrific afterlife if he doesn’t change his ways. Scrooge is then visited by three ghosts who hope to show Scrooge the beauty of Christmas and make him a better man.

 

You can buy the Dickens classic from any bookstore, but you can also watch one of the many adaptations that exist. (The1951 version with Alastair Sim is the best though.)

 

 

This is a Canadian classic so I might be biased, but ’tis the season so I’m sharing it! In 1957 on Christmas Eve, a pilot heading home faces death as he’s lost in the air and fog with no radio, no compass, and a plane running low on fuel. But just as all hope seems lost, another pilot appears who was apparently sent to guide him home. Forsyth wrote the story as a Christmas gift to his wife who wanted a ghost story for Christmas. How could you not want to read it after learning that?

 

 

I stumbled upon this story from a Goodreads review and am now obsessed with G.V. Anderson. “Hearts in the Hard Ground” follows Fiona, who buys a new house after her mother dies. She hopes she can make newer, happier memories in a place that doesn’t remind her of her mother’s last days. But her new home doesn’t have a very happy history, and it’s filled with many more ghosts than she could’ve imagined. While learning to live with the ghosts, Fiona ends up confronting her own grief and finding peace not only for her ghostly roommates but for herself. This story is so moving, powerful, and completely unforgettable. It’s a short story I keep coming back to. It’s one that haunts me in the best of ways.

 

Emily Carroll has a talent for short, creepy, and memorable webcomics, and “All Along the Wall” doesn’t disappoint. This story follows a young girl named Lottie who attends a Christmas party and, while exploring the house, ends up finding Rebecca, the daughter of the host. Lottie asks Rebecca for a ghost story with “Lots of blood! Or maybe a murderer,” and Rebecca, ever the good host, tells her one.

 

 

A chilling and stellar short story, “Postcards from Natalie” tells the story of Mandy, a girl who receives postcards from her older sister Natalie who ran away with her boyfriend Keith. Mandy holds onto these few postcards as a way of keeping in touch with her far-off sister and trying to cope with the way her life has changed without Natalie in it. Natalie tells Mandy about what she’s been up to, how she ends up joining a large group of others who journey across the country, and how every now and then one of them mysteriously disappears. “Postcards from Natalie” is a story that completely rocked me. It’s so shocking and so emotionally charged. It’s one of my absolute favorites and one I can’t stop recommending to people.

 

 

 

“Then Later, His Ghost” is a different kind of story on this list and one for those who want a post-apocalyptic Christmas story. A man and a woman live in a barn with a child on the way while a tempest level snowstorm blows around them. The man wants to make the holiday memorable and special, and he goes out in search of pages from books to give as a story to the woman as a Christmas gift. While what exactly caused this apocalyptic landscape remains a mystery, there are some implications of climate change and a mention of a flu-like pandemic which may be a little too on the nose for some readers. But if you’re a fan of dystopian literature that still manages to make you feel filled with the Christmas spirit, then this is the story for you!