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Christmas Ghosts

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Christmas is just around the corner, and I find that it is time to review another book that blends fantasy with the Yuletide season. My selection this year is _Christmas Ghosts_ (1987), edited by those estimable editors, Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell. Ever since the nineteenth the nineteenth century, there has been a tradition of telling ghost stories 'round the fire on Christmas eve. Two of the greatest ghost stories of all time-- Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw"-- are linked to Christmas. Indeed, they may have contributed to this tradition.

One of the stories in this anthology has been a favorite of mine ever since I read it in fourth grade: "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall," by John Kendrick Bangs. It's the one about the ghost of the _very wet_ woman who haunts a mansion every Christmas eve. I missed some of Bangs' biting humor when I first read it as a child. The last line tells us something about the hero that we were not aware of before.

Charles Dickens is represented with two stories, "The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton" and "A Christmas Tree". Neither is in the same league as "A Christmas Carol," but both are very good. The first is about some goblins in a churchyard on Christmas eve who teach an ill-tempered sexton some manners. The second is more of a sketch than a story. It tells of a wonderful tree, some enchanted toys, and a sinister doll's mask.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Christmas Banquet" tells of a skeleton who presides over an annual Christmas feast populated by some unpleasant characters. Did Hawthorne have Jeremy Bentham in mind? As with many of Hawthorne's tales, it is an allegory warning against the separation of the head from the heart and the corresponding sin of coldness. Hawthorne is a bit old-fashioned, but he remains a great writer.

Three stories are concerned with ghosts and romantic affairs. In F. Anstey's "The Curse of the Catafalques," a Christmas haunt prevents an amiable cad from marrying a somewhat pliable heiress. It is the funniest tale in the collection. In Frank R. Stockton's "The Great Staircase at Landover Hall" and Leonard Kip's "The Ghosts at Grantley," the ghosts aid the right couples to come together-- after some complications, of course.

There are four crime-and-revenge stories. In Elizabeth Walter's "Christmas Night," a ghostly victim saves a young couple from a murderous specter. In A.N.L. Munby's "A Christmas Game," Sir Andrew Caldecott's "Christmas Morning," and Mrs. J.H. Riddell's "A Strange Christmas Game," ghosts exact retribution to living malefactors. These four stories are passably well crafted but not really exceptional.

William D. O'Connor's "The Ghost" is about a hard-hearted doctor who gradually reforms with the aid of a ghost that he cannot see and his kindly daughter. It is perhaps heavy-handed in spots, but the portrayal of nineteenth century Boston is sharp and clear. Marjorie Bowen's "The Crown Derby Plate" involves a woman who wants to get a single antique piece. She does so, but... The story is short, efficient, and tightly told.

Four of the stories strike me as a bit below par. Ramsey Campbell's "Calling Card" is an exercise in repulsive horror. I don't expect all my Christmas stories to be sugary. But _damnation_... I do expect them to be fairly positive. Arthur Machen's "A New Christmas Carol" is a not-so-funny farce in which Scrooge is haunted by the ghost of Christmas of 1920. Elia Wilkinson Peattie's "Their Dear Little Ghost" is a short, sentimental, and predictable tale about the ghost of a little girl who appears at Christmas eve. Rosemary Timperly's "Christmas Meeting" is a fairly clever piece that conceals its twist ending. But it is a one-punch story that does not wear well on rereading.

In an introduction to the anthology, Hartwell states that the tradition "is _not_, historically, centered on Christmas but rather on ghosts" (xiv). Well, perhaps. But many other Christmas traditions (Christmas carols, Christmas trees, Christmas cards) started outside traditional Christianity. They were incorporated into the mainstream because of their popularity. It just may be that these stories have more to do with Christianity than Hartwell believes.