From the unexplained to the mundane, come join us on a journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, where we keep the paranormal alive during
this festive and merry time of year.
We are your festively spooky podcast hosts, Taylor and Chelsea, here today reigniting
an age-old Christmas tradition.
Now, Chelsea, I don't know about you, but as an edgy teenager, or a little older, I guess
too, I've never thought of a Christmas Carol as truly a Christmas story.
It comes up a lot during Christmas, but that story could technically take place at any time.
It just happens to kind of take place at Christmas.
Little did I know.
Go ahead.
But it's the ghost of Christmas present and past.
Well, yeah, but it's not like the merry-mint of the season actually did anything.
It's all about him realizing that workers kind of need a day off.
At the end of the day, it's ghost telling a business owner to give people a day off.
Okay, I mean, if you're taking it strictly for, I mean, yes, yes, that's what it's about.
It's teaching us the valuable lesson of a Christmas day off.
But I didn't actually realize that it actually is incredibly Christmassy because it adheres
to an age-old tradition of the Christmas ghost story.
This episode's going to be about the history of the Christmas ghost story.
I'm going to cover the actual history itself, and then Chelsea's going to do a bit of the
actual ghosting in the story.
Yeah, I'm coming to haunt you guys.
Yeah, but yeah, but this is a super old tradition.
The precise origin of telling ghost stories at the end of the year is act.
It's not known because it's an oral tradition.
So you know, like no written records that say, aha, it dates back here because they dated
it.
It's too old to know.
It may be the beginning of time.
Probably the beginning of time when those cells, like you said that one time, like three
billion years ago, they were telling those ghost stories.
Sarah Cleido, a folklore specializing in British literature, says the season around
Windsor Solstice has been one of transition and change for a very, very long time.
The season has provoked oral stories about spooky things in many different countries
and cultures all over the world.
Scary storytelling gave people something to do during the long, dark evenings before
electricity.
Tara Moore, an assistant professor of English at Elizabeth Town College, also adds that,
quote, the long midwinter nights means folks had to stop working early and they spent their
leisure hours huddled close to fire.
Plus, you didn't need to be literate to retell the local ghost stories.
And it was in Victoria, England that telling supernatural tales at the end of the year,
specifically during the Christmas season, went from an oral tradition to a timely trend.
This was due to the development of the printing press, which gave Victorians the opportunity
to commercialize and commodify existing oral ghost stories.
Turning them into a version they could sell, quote, higher literacy rates, cheaper printing
costs, and more periodicals meant that editors needed to fill pages, Moore says.
Around Christmas time, they figured they could convert the old storytelling tradition to
a printed version.
People who moved out of their towns and villages and into larger cities still wanted access
to the supernatural sagas they heard around the fireplace growing up, quote.
Fortunately, Victorian authors like Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Olyphant, and Arthur Conan
Doyle worked through the fall to cook up these stories and have them ready to print in time
for Christmas.
The interest was driven, she says, by, quote, the rise of industrialization, the rise of
science, and the looming fall of Victorian Britain as a superpower.
All of these things were in people's minds and made the world seem a little bit darker
and a little bit scarier, end quote.
Oh, spooky.
Yeah.
The popularity of Victorian Christmas ghost stories also transcended the socioeconomic
status, according to Moore.
They were available to read everywhere from cheap publications to expensive Christmas
annuals that middle-class ladies would show off on their coffee tables.
Their broad audiences were reflected in the stories themselves, which sometimes centered
around the working-class characters and other times took place in haunted manor houses.
The upper-class settings were intended to invite readers from all classes into an idealized
upper-crust Christmas.
The type today's fans of Downton Abbey still enjoy as entertainment, Moore added.
And then Charles Dickens comes along, and in 1843 he writes a novella called Christmas
Carol.
This has forever linked the British author with the holiday season, but his contribution
to Christmas in Victoria, England, included the tradition of telling and reading ghost
stories, extend far beyond Jacob Marley's visit to Scrooge.
In fact, Dickens played a huge part in popularizing the genre in England.
Quote, he wrote a bunch of different Christmas novellas, several of which involved ghosts
specifically, Clito says, and then he started editing more and more Christmas ghost stories
from other people and working those into the magazines he was already editing, and that
just caught like wildfire, end quote.
Dickens also helped shape Christmas literature in general, Moore says, by formalizing expectations
about themes like forgiveness and reunion during the holiday season.
As this phenomenon was based in folklore and the supernatural, it was a tradition, the
Puritans that moved from Britain to the New World and the US frowned upon so it didn't
really gain traction in America prior to this all taking place.
Washington Irving helped resurrect a number of forgotten Christmas traditions in the early
19th century, but it really was Dickens who popularized a notion of telling ghost stories
on Christmas, even in the US.
A Christmas Carol was an immediate bestseller in the United States, but at the time of its
publication, Dickens was arguably the most famous writer in the world and already wildly
popular.
The novella's success in the US likely had more to do with Dickens' existing fan base
than it did Americans' interest in incorporating the supernatural into Christmas.
Quote, American Christmas scenes and stories tended to be syrupy sweet, end quote Moore
explains.
There were few American writers of the period trying to put Victorian-style Christmas ghost
stories into American culture, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James.
Washington Irving made a similar and earlier attempt, slipping the supernatural into Christmas
scenes short stories published in 1819-1820.
However, in 1868, Dickens discontinued his Christmas publications, complaining to his
friend Charles Fector that he felt, quote, as if I had murdered Christmas a number of
years ago and its ghosts perpetually haunted me, end quote.
By then the ghosts of Christmas stories had taken on an afterlife of its own and other
writers rushed to feel the void that Dickens had left.
By the time Jerome's 1891 told after Supper book was written, he could casually joke about
traditions long and sconce in Victorian culture.
If some of these later ghost stories hadn't entered the Christmas canon as Dickens'
work did, there's perhaps a reason, as William Dean Howell would lament in Harper's
editorial in 1886, the Christmas ghost tradition suffered from the gradual loss of Dickens'
sentimental morality.
And this is a quote from the 1886 Harper's edition.
The ethical intention which gave Dickens' Christmas stories of still earlier date has
almost wholly disappeared, end quote.
So that happens, Dickens kind of stops writing Christmas stories and, you know, after a great
one leaves, there's just people stop watching him, like a lot of sports.
Makes sense.
And then another reason telling spooky stories never really took off after this time in the
United States was because it became more firmly established as a Halloween tradition, thanks
to the immigration of Irish and Scottish immigrants.
The holiday as we know it is an odd hybrid of Celtic and Catholic traditions.
We will probably do an episode on this next year around Halloween, as Halloween as we
know it borrows a lot of tradition from a holiday known as Samhain, which is celebrated
at the end of the harvest season and the onset of winter by the Irish and the Scottish.
As well with numerous other pagan holidays, Samhain was in time merged with Catholic festivals
such as All Souls Day, which is on November 1st, which could also have kinged towards
obsession with the dead into Halloween, a time when the dead were revered.
The barangays between this life and the afterlife were thinnest, and when ghosts and goblins
were of the night.
Americans seized on Halloween supernatural side, rather than the cultural aspects, we
all know how this turned out in the long run.
So the transition from Christmas to Halloween as the preeminent holiday for ghosts was an
uneven one.
Even as late as 1915, Christmas annuals of magazines were still dominated by ghost stories,
and Florence Kingsland's 1904 book, of indoor and outdoor games, still lists ghost stories
as fine fair for a Christmas celebration.
And in this book it quotes, the realm of spirits was always thought to be nearer to that of
mortals on Christmas than any other time.
Other than the Christmas Carol, which is still very popular, I assume that everybody
still watches them up at Christmas Carol.
The obviously correct one to watch.
It's the only reference I have for a Christmas Carol, and I don't want to change it.
That's exactly what I'm picturing.
It's what Dickens intended to amaze.
I assume he wrote it with the Muppets in mind, and he also wrote all those catchy songs.
But it's not the only one ghost related reference that you would see around Christmas time.
The 1963 song by Andy Williams, it's the most wonderful time of year, lists scary ghost
stories as one of the highlights of the holiday season.
Which I didn't actually realize until I was doing research for this episode, but it's totally
in that song.
Although it's unclear why the writers of the song included the tradition, Clito says that
it's possible that the lyrics is a reference to Dickens at Christmas Carol.
It's only the one text she notes, but it's such a big deal here in the US and the UK
that it's pretty much all that Americans know about Christmas ghost stories in isolation.
So yeah, that's the background behind it, and I think, personally, this means that you
can still wear your Halloween costume around Christmas if you want to.
That's definitely what that means.
So I say we show up to Christmas in our Halloween costumes, of course.
But yeah, that's the history of the tradition behind it and kind of why it fell out of fashion.
I think it needs to make a comeback.
I think that that's a pretty cool tradition if I do say myself.
I should also add at this point that one of my main articles that I used for my research
was the Smithsonian Magazine.
So I should point out that they're likely trying to cover some sort of giant related
tradition that is relating to Christmas to instead bring back ghost stories.
So again, probably hiding something giant related, but we'll continue on from here.
We can just assume that from here on out.
Anything Smithsonian is covering up giants.
It's covering up giants.
What Christmas giants do we not know about?
But I think it's a good time to continue on to the actual stories themselves.
It's your turn now.
Okay.
Yes.
So basically there wasn't just like the Muppet Christmas Carol like we were just talking
about.
I have to bring it up again because that's a five star Christmas movie in my opinion.
I believe we watched it last year.
Was it or the year before?
I watch it every year.
It's so catchy.
And I personally believe it is Michael Cain's best acting role.
For sure.
And I'm going to be singing some of those.
They're going to be stuck in my head until after Christmas at least.
And then I personally just add how much more difficult it must be to take a serious acting
role entirely around Muppets.
That's true.
Because he does a deadpan mean Scrooge.
Yes.
And that just has to be so hard.
It's five star movie, five star acting to Michael Cain.
I don't know how he didn't end up with the Oscar that year.
It is an Oscar worthy movie.
I am telling you that right now.
That is one of my favorite movies.
And I could probably sing you some songs off by her right now.
But now I'm going to talk about Christmas ghost stories.
The stories, which is usually the best part of any episode is the sightings.
So first I just wanted to touch on some, if you're looking to tell a Christmas ghost story
this year and bring it back, I just wanted to go over a little of that first.
And then I'll come on.
Sorry.
I just I looked this up.
Anthony Hopkins won it in 1992 for Silence of the Lambs.
I know.
Literally they screwed up.
What's up with Christmas Carol?
Leaving on the docket.
I didn't look it up.
I just looked up who won that.
I don't know what to comment on that.
I mean, I'll do respect Anthony Hopkins.
Disappointing to see the least.
Okay.
So what Taylor talked about, I mean some of these are epics like the Christmas Carol.
That's a Christmas ghost story epic.
And a lot of them were periodicals in magazines like Taylor said.
And there are anthologies of books that you can get out there on Amazon, Indigo, whoever
you want to support.
We might put one out if you want to support local.
There's quite a few of those put together of periodicals in one convenient place.
So for example, I found a Valicort book of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, the Wimborn
book of Victorian ghost stories, lots of options out there as far as specific ghost
stories that will spook the holiday spirit right into you.
Special mentions go to the old nurses story by Elizabeth Gaskell who Taylor mentioned.
Horror, a true tale by John Berwick Hartwood.
Bring me a light by Jane Margaret Hooper.
Charles Dickens, the signal man.
There we go.
Another one.
MR James, a warning to the curious.
Wolverton Tower by George Allen.
Smee by A.M.
Brat.
Bridge.
How he left the hotel, Louisa Baldwin.
Needless to say, there's a ton.
So if you're looking to add to your holiday book collection, I would highly recommend
probably an anthology of short stories.
Most bang for your buck.
So let's get into some highly sought after Christmasy paranormal encounters.
I don't believe that these are going to be as Christmas story as we just went over because
these ones are just spooky stories.
Am I right in saying that?
Yeah, they're not necessarily Christmasy.
No, it's just more so that whole tradition of reading a ghost story around Christmas.
It doesn't necessarily need to be Christmas related.
Yeah, but for me it needed to be Christmas related.
So these are in no relation to the Christmas ghost stories that we just talked about.
This is our own journey to the fringe spin on it because you need some Christmas in a
ghost story for a Christmas ghost story episode, I think.
For restarting the tradition, we need to have a segue or a bridge to be able to get to the
true ghost stories, which is incorporating it to Christmas to make sure that we understand
why it's happening.
Exactly.
So you can take these into the segue of finishing it off with some real ghost stories.
Even go back and listen to a scary spooky episode of ours is my recommendation as well.
Okay, so first up is the mistletoe bride.
In the early 17th century, a young woman named Anne was to be married on Christmas day in
Bramshill House in Hampshire, England.
After the ceremony and feast, as was tradition at the time, the guests were all set to carry
the bride to the bed chamber.
Anne suggested a game be played and asked for a five minute head start before the guests
came to find her.
Everyone searched long and hard for Anne, but no sign of her could be found.
At first they thought she had played a merry trick, but soon a sense of unease fell over
the guests.
The bridegroom, Lord Lovell, not sure what that meat bridegroom, I don't know, was distraught,
but the guests began to whisper that she must have fled.
Days, weeks, months, and years passed, and Lord Lovell never stopped looking for his
bride.
One day, can you imagine just like, is she in this closet?
Like, maybe I never checked this closet.
I don't think it's a continuous investigation.
It's kind of just like, oh right, right, she's missing.
And then you just like open the closet and then be like, I'm not enough for now.
Yeah, I can't remember if I looked in this closet, but she's not there.
It's just important that I take that step.
One day, some 50 years after her disappearance, Lord Lovell was up in the huge attic of the
sprawling mansion, where he began tapping on the oak paneling, looking for her obviously.
As he knocked, a long hidden secret door sprung open, and inside he found an ornate wooden
chest.
He pried open the heavy wooden lid, and there, still in her wedding dress and clutching her
mistletoe bouquet, for the skeletal remains of his beloved.
The scratch marks on the inside of the lid of the chest attest to her desperate but futile
effort to free herself from her hiding space.
That's the end of that story.
That is like a huge legend around England.
So you will hear this in many a manners on this one.
And manors, not manners, is in like being polite.
Manors like a house.
A lot of them circulate around with many different kind of.
The end result is always the same, but the story changes it up.
But I like on this one in particular where her hiding spot is behind a secret trapdoor
in a chest.
The trapdoor wasn't enough.
No, we needed extra staff.
That was the jam haul right there.
The next one is the Christmas apparition of Elcatraz.
The island of Elcatraz, if you're not familiar, is off the coast of San Francisco, and it
has a very long and spooky history.
In its earlier days, Native Americans allegedly used to banish miscreants to the island as
punishment, or they were reportedly plagued by the local spirit.
Elcatraz, of course, became a notorious federal prison in 1934, housing criminals such as
Al Capone before it was shut down in 1963.
Today, visitors to the island report hearing screams, the clanging of metal doors, and the
sound of voices within the walls.
One of the most famous tales associated with the island supposedly occurred in the 1940s,
when Warden James Johnston held a Christmas Day party at his residence for the staff at
the prison.
The good cheer is said to have been brought to a swift halt when an apparition sporting
mutton chop whiskers and a gray suit appeared.
The temperature in the room plummeted and the fire blew out before returning to normal
when the spirit disappeared about a minute later.
The rattle guards were too scared to stay in the residence and the rest of the Christmas
celebration ended abruptly and Christmas was cancelled that year in Elcatraz.
Next one.
Headless Anne Boie-Lyn at Heaver Castle in Kent, England.
Anne Boie-Lyn is notorious as the second of King Henry the...
Eek?
King Henry the Eighth.
Nice, they read that right.
His ill-fated wives.
To Mary Anne, Henry spent years seeking a divorce from his first wife Catherine of Aragon and
went on to sever England's relationship with the Catholic Church in Rome for ever changing
the course of British history.
Despite the lengths he went to ensnare her, Henry soon grew tired of Anne and chose him
to believe the idle gossip surrounding her had her beheaded in 1536.
I gotta say I'm not entirely familiar with this story so I'm not sure what the gossip
was.
Really?
Like I've heard of it.
Yeah.
I don't know the story.
Okay, just to give you a little bit of Cole's notes on Henry the Eighth.
Are you gonna give me the gossip?
I'm just gonna give you the Cole's notes of the story.
So he wanted a son, he couldn't get a son.
Oh, I do know it.
Yeah.
So he divorced his first wife because Anne Boie-Lyn's like, no, I can make sons like nobody's
business.
Yeah.
So he goes to the Catholic Church and he says he wants a divorce and they say, no, you
can't have a divorce.
So he says, well, then I'm gonna start my own church.
Starts the church, England gets the divorce and his first wife gets a bunch of his territory.
And doesn't have a son beheads her, marries some more people, more beheading takes place.
Okay, okay.
I did know that.
So for all the listeners who asked, they thank you.
Okay, so I'm not sure what the gossip is still.
Apparently Taylor did not have the gossip.
That was the part of it.
I think it was that he couldn't have a son.
So there was something wrong with, you know, the gossip around children.
Yes, okay.
And having children.
Yeah, I am familiar with that.
Especially when they don't understand how reproduction actually works at that point.
And they think that the woman can control it.
Whether it's a son or a daughter.
It's not like I would be, okay, I'm not just about to give away all woman's secrets right
now, but we can.
Okay.
Is that all of the women's secrets?
Yes, that's our secrets.
To finish the story.
A number of reports exist of the ghost of Anne Boilin, but perhaps the most affecting is the
version said to haunt her childhood home.
The fever castle in Kent.
Some say that every Christmas Eve, the spectral figure of Anne Boilin can be seen slowly gliding
across the bridge over the river Eden toward her family home where she was at her happiest.
Next one.
Oh, this is a good one.
Headless horseman at Ruse Hall in Suffolk, England.
There's another one.
This is the Christmas headless horseman.
Ruse Hall in Suffolk, Suffolk, maybe?
Yeah, Suffolk.
Okay.
This is a good time to being one of the most haunted houses in England.
The 16th century hall has a number of sinister connections, including a gruesome hanging tree,
an oak tree planted at the site of the old gibbet where numerous criminals were hung.
To make things even spookier, inside one of the building's cupboards, the mark of the
devil's cloven hoof is said to be imprinted.
He was there too.
He probably helped build the manor, I would assume, because he was such a good guy.
He did not, and he just wanted to have a merry Christmas.
Didn't want to be alone, geez.
Perhaps the most dramatic haunting is supposed to happen every Christmas Eve.
Legend has it that the headless horseman clatters down the driveway with his four black, sometimes
headless horses as well pulling a phantom coach, driven noiselessly down the driveway
towards the house.
As the spectral coach reaches the door, it stops and a beautiful woman steps out of the
coach, but for those who are drawn to her beauty would do well to look away, as it is
said that if you look her in the eye, you will be driven to madness or instant death.
She's not headless then, correct?
Doesn't seem to be, no.
I guess nobody would really be drawn to an attractive head...
I shouldn't say nobody, but less people would be drawn to an attractive headless woman.
The ghost of Sir Jeffrey de Mandeville and his headless dog roam the streets on Christmas
Eve.
Sir Jeffrey de Mandeville held the title of Earl of Essex and was the prestigious European
landowner during the 1100s.
Because of his title, he had great influence over royal politics at the time.
However, when a debate emerged regarding the rightful heir to the throne, he chose the
losing side and was promptly stripped of many of his assets and excommunicated from the
church.
During his excommunication, Sir Jeffrey was slain on the battlefield, but because of his
exile, he was not allowed a proper Christian internment.
Intern?
Internment.
No, there's no N. I thought it was internment as well.
Proper Christian internment, which many believe left his spirit trapped within the earthly
realm.
Maybe it was spelled wrong, I'm not sure.
It says internment, but we may think it means internment, but take with whatever one might
know is correct.
Because I know nothing about whatever that means.
Emperor claims that Sir Jeffrey also left a curse on the properties he owned, stating
that should they ever be taken away from him, ruin would befall his betrayer, and every
six years on Christmas Eve, he and a headless dog would haunt the land draped in a red cloak.
That's an interesting curse.
Ever since his demise, people who have visited the properties he once owned, particularly
the Pimsbrook Bridge in East Barnett, have reported hearing strange noises and witnessing
the hazy image of a headless dog breaking through the fog accompanied by a knight in
full armor and a red cloak.
I mean, does that not make the dog way less dangerous if it doesn't have a head?
Yeah, like almost 100% less dangerous.
Most of the dangerous part is the teeth.
Yeah, it's the head part.
So I know we've also done some stories like this before as well, but what is a Christmas
story without some spooky Santa's eating to really scare the children?
Yes.
So I couldn't choose what way to go with spooky Christmas, so I went all directions.
User AnotherPint on Reddit says, I saw Santa Claus when I was seven or eight years old.
In the early hours of Christmas morning in our big rambling Victorian house on Staten
Island, I had gotten up to go to the bathroom which was on the top of a long ornate staircase
leading to the main living and dining floor.
The house was dark and my parents and siblings were asleep.
As I emerged from the bathroom, I looked down the stairs anticipating stuffed stockings
on Christmas morning a few hours off.
At the bottom of the stairs was Santa Claus.
He looked back up at me and sorta half waved then gave me two quick successive come on
down here gestures as if he wanted me to join him.
Oh, that's great.
User I know, I heard nothing but saw him quite clearly.
I was wide awake, not on any meds, and lucid.
I was shocked and excited by what I saw and after a long few seconds retreated to my room
rather than accept his invitation.
It's nearly 50 years later and I think about my Santa sighting every Christmas.
I know what I saw, it's one of the three or four genuinely inexplainable experiences
of my life.
In later years, I read up on Jung's theory about UFOs, projection, and the collective
unconscious and wondered if a mass longing by a whole planet's worth of wishful children
could literally conjure Santa Claus into manifesting.
Stranger things have happened and judging from this thread, Santa has happened to more
people than me.
I put that one in just for his last blurb, I thought that was really an interesting
take on it.
Yeah, I really wish he replaced the word manifest with Santa Fest, but other than that it's
proper.
Santa Fested into his life.
Next sighting is baby bird lover.
My 30 year old daughter is convinced that she saw Santa Claus in her house Christmas
Eve when she was 7 years old.
She said she woke up in the middle of the night and was too excited to sleep.
She told me she got up and was walking down the hallway to the living room when she saw
him.
He put a finger up over his mouth in a quiet gesture then she went back to her room.
She told me she was surprised to see him and that she had the feeling the entire time she
was looking at him that she was seeing something she shouldn't be seeing.
Maybe we ought to wonder exactly what we are inadvertently inviting into our homes with
this Santa Claus tale.
The BEK show up at your door and ask for permission to enter, black eye kids, that just dawn on
me.
For permission to enter, with Santa Claus we have already given him permission to enter.
I like that thought as well.
Well yeah if you're putting out cookies and milk.
It doesn't work, but I think they need like not implicit consent.
They need to ask and you need to say yes.
Yeah like with most entities it can't be implicit consent.
Like with vampires it can't be implicit.
Like it needs to be expressed.
But if you had like set out like...
Maybe those rules don't apply to chimneys.
You washed your neck and you were like sitting on the couch and you were like the vampire
comes tonight.
You leave the door open and like put all your stakes away with like the intention that they're
coming into your house.
You don't think a vampire could come in?
I don't think so, no.
I think they need the express consent of the person.
It can't just be implied.
But I guess it's open to interpretation.
It is, it is.
I was just gonna say it's open for debate.
I feel like this is now an episode that we'll have to do in the future.
I'm not consent to enter.
Rest consent from paranormal entities.
Let's get to another sighting then.
With that we'll get no answers today.
Woke as 1000, my little brother saw Santa Claus a couple years ago at my grandparents'
house at midnight.
Oh this one's creepy.
I always try to dispute because we sleep downstairs and the tree is upstairs.
So even if Santa was real there'd be no reason for him to go downstairs.
But my brother swears he woke up late at night and saw Santa Claus standing at the foot of
his bed in the dark.
Oh creepy.
Hey, this one is posted by user MaxwellHill.
Just kidding.
What the heck?
I'm just gonna be surprised because Jelaine is Jewish so that would disprove her.
It being her.
But what was I gonna ask?
Sorry.
If something like that happened to you in childhood, do you think you would talk to your parents
about like, hey let's give up this whole Santa thing?
I don't want Santa to come this year.
Santa terrifies me.
And would you want to go for pictures with Santa?
And you just see him everywhere.
And especially if you're in the age of Santa being big in your life, seeing the small Santa
as I'm sure it's the same guy, so that would be terrifying.
So yeah.
And when you're in a conversation when parents are saying Santa comes this year and you're
like, can we take any measures to not have him come?
But you're not thinking of this as a little kid.
You're thinking of it as you and being like, holy shit that's creepy Santa Claus standing
it.
Maybe he woke up and was just like, better go back to sleep because Santa is gonna bring
me presents.
And he's sure to see if I'm asleep.
Yeah.
And I guess he's creepy but he also brings gifts.
Exactly.
So more important is the gifts for kids that are creepy.
Oh, little kid's minds.
Next one is actually posted by a user to lead it.
Oh no.
It could be Maxwell.
Oh god.
This was many, many years ago but I still remember it like it was yesterday.
I still believed in Santa Claus then as a good amount of children do and I had the usual
anxiety and excitement for Santa to leave Christmas presents by the tree.
Anxiety.
After, maybe he wasn't good that year.
After I went to bed I had some trouble going to sleep with holiday nerves and such.
This guy had a lot of anxiety as a kid.
He's his.
Yeah, I had finally drifted off.
See, he's a little prussian as a lot of kids apparently.
I had finally drifted off when I woke up to the sound of soft footsteps somewhere in
my room.
I automatically assumed it was Santa Claus and I was scared to see him for fear he might
leave or his magic will fail.
I opened one eye just barely and saw this black figure standing over my bed staring at me.
I know.
Interesting wording here.
What's going on in life?
Yeah, it was tall, probably around six feet tall and it was completely dark.
It looked almost blacker than black in any way.
I couldn't see any eyes, a mouth or nose on it, but I could clearly see the outline
of a head, arms, body and legs.
It looked like a bigger person so thinking it was Santa just made sense.
It stayed in one spot for 10 maybe 15 seconds until it took a step closer.
It leaned in a little more, still a few feet away from me and then stayed there for 10-15
seconds more.
Even though I couldn't see a face, I knew it was looking at me.
It's just that weird feeling you get when you know you're being watched or looked
at.
I closed my eyes again and waited for a few minutes when I looked back it was gone.
I lived in a pretty old house at the time so the doors and floor beds were squeaky and
loud.
I heard the footsteps but I never heard the door open.
I never saw this figure again though I've had some other spooky experiences in the house.
I asked my mum if she heard Santa when he came into my room last night and she looked
confused for a second then she played along and just assumed I was lying.
I know this wasn't a person and I know this wasn't a dream.
I also know that spirits entities are often attracted to lots of excitement energy so
Christmas would be a perfect time for ghosts to pass through.
Yeah, so that kid probably was not living the best life.
And then this is my last one by Yeezer Deleted.
So here's the last story for your merry Christmas.
I remember that I used to have a recurring dream growing up about a huge tall thing in
the snow outside my bedroom window with like really really bright green eyes.
It would only happen on Christmas Eve and my head cannon and my head cannon was that
it was some Christmas being like Santa Claus.
I don't know what head cannon means.
Oh that was what they decided in their mind.
Like oh that entity out there is Santa related.
Okay.
To explain it to themselves.
It would only happen on Christmas Eve and my head cannon was that it was some Christmas
being like Santa Claus.
The end.
Huh.
Yeah.
Okay.
I know.
Well, I hope that we have given you sufficient first off tradition as well as stories and
then time to get back into your Halloween costume to make this festive time of year just a
little more festive.
But in the meantime, I hope everybody enjoys their holidays, whether it be Christmas or
otherwise that have taken place over this last month.
I have been Taylor, here with Chelsea.
We are Journey to the Fringe.
Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week.
Bye.
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