The dark side of Christmas

 

Christmas is actually an extension of Halloween, because it's meant to be a time of spookiness. How did I come to this? Well it's got so much happiness now that it shields everyone from nightmares but Christmas and Yule (whatever holiday you call it) is within the darkest time of the year. It's got many creepy things attached:

1. Ghosts

2. Monsters

3. Death

While modern Christmas is celebrated with family, friends, feasts, presents, decorations and cheer, it used to be a worrying month. Traditionally, for centuries, people listened to ghost stories around a warm fire that barely kept out the chill. This is deep rooted in ancient rituals of the Winter Solstice, and when people feared the spectral Wild Hunt. This is a phantom noisy gathering of hunters across the sky, making terrible sounds, that was believed to land and slaughter anything in its way. There is with that a fear of winter and darkness when the sun is less visible. People have perished during freezing winters. 

Monsters are also part of many cultural traditions. We have Krampus in places like Germany that children have feared so much for many generations; there is the dreaded monster Yule Cat in Iceland; scary Jack Frost in England; the nightmarish Wendigo in the USA, and the list of Yule/Christmas monsters is endless. As Christmas time means holidays and joy, there is always that inner fear that some monster is lurking so there are ways of protection. Also there's many old superstitions about doom and gloom over Christmas that are still believed today. The most famous and benign superstition is kissing under the mistletoe but also there's many scary superstition about Christmas such as the one about Christmas trees as symbols and omens of death.

To learn much more about the things I briefly covered, check out these pages I've linked. Here are some spooky pages: Mental Floss page "8 Legendary Christmas Monsters" HERE.

 Smithsonian Magazine "Ghost Stories at Christmas" article HERE.

Interesting page "Christmas Death myths. Omens and Superstitions" at Funeral Help Centre HERE.

She Wolf Night