Winter's Tales

I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o' the dead/May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother/Appear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream/So like a waking. --Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

Try the old tradition of "winter's tales", ghost stories for entertaining in the early darkness of winter. Dickens's Christmas Carol is an example of the Victorian tradition of ghost stories for Christmas. Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales evokes the tradition when the children are frightened when caroling. Richard Vadim's story "Only Being Neighborly", reminds me of this scene.

In True Tales of Ghosts, visitors include a fond mother, a remorseful brother, an inspiring uncle from beyond the grave; or from beyond our understanding, as in The Three Women. Sometimes we are the strangers, moving in to the home of the ghost of a person unknown to us. 

There is something warm and inviting about drawing your loved ones close for a ghost tale! I am continuing this tradition in my family.