Christmas Hauntings: The Tradition Behind the Terror

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
From Weirdo family member Kristin Harrison, December twenty sixth, twenty twenty.
My son had been put to bed and it was
mom time. I had parboiled myself in a bubble bath
hotter and was feeling very relaxed, except for a niggling
feeling that something wasn't quite right. I figured it must

(00:24):
be the beginnings of hunger touching my body. I made
my way to the kitchen, where I was met by
my rotund feline. He made it loudly known that he
was in need of sustenance, despite having half a bowl
full of kibble at his disposal. Acknowledging his need, I
put on hold my own desire for chocolate, milk and
cookies so as to eat my forbidden snack without the

(00:45):
curious eyes of a small child hungrily begging for a morsel.
When I say morsel, I mean every crumb and drop
of delectable delicacies in my possession. I intended to follow
my voracious pet to his feeding stone, when I was
stopped by a sensation of someone, some thing being present

(01:06):
besides my cat and myself. I glanced at my furry friend,
and he was staring intently at a location in my
home in a manner I've never seen him express. He's
a very laid back cat, so for him to be
arching his back with his ears pinned to his head
and growling was unheard of at this moment. I slowly

(01:27):
made my way to the light switch to illuminate the
area at which he was glaring. Once the lights were on,
there was nothing. I felt a feeling of cold dread
seat through me as he began to slowly stalk whatever
he saw. Having grown up in the countryside, I knew
the signs of a cat stalking its prey. This was

(01:47):
not his stance. His stance was that of defense, as
if a dog were advancing towards him. My mind went
directly to knowledge I have of entities and paranormal activity,
along with a small uttering of what would Sam and
Dean do. I spoke aloud in as calm a voice
I could muster to the presence that was making itself

(02:07):
clearly felt it was not malevolent, but curious, good evening.
I'm not sure who you are or what you want,
but I'm going to ask you politely to leave, as
I do not have any ill intentions towards you, and
sure you do not have any towards me. I then
took my salt shaker from the table and thoroughly salted

(02:29):
the area in which I felt the presence coming and
liberally in front of my sleeping child's door. I then
put out a dish of leftover food from our dinner
and a glass of water. Speaking again to the entity,
I kindly said, here is some food for your journey,
and may you find peace and happiness wherever you go.
After all of this, I felt a warmth as if

(02:52):
there was a hug being wrapped around me, and my
heart was touched. Had no one shown kindness to whatever
this entity? He was the poor thing. My mother's heart
went out to it, and I sent a hug out
with my heart. My cat then went back to his
wailing for his food, since he was most certainly wasting
away to nothing from the unexpected interruption of his kibble.

(03:15):
Receiving Christmas ghost stories in this episode of Weird Darkness.
Welcome weirdos. I'm Darren Marler, and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural legends, more

(03:40):
the strange and bizarre crime conspiracy, mysterious macabre unsolved and
unexplained coming up in this episode. Earlier this month, I
shared some true reports of people seeing Chris Kringle or
what appeared to be Chris Kringle in real life. But

(04:00):
there are many more of those strange sightings to share.
Christmas has been celebrated for centuries, and gift giving has
been around in America since well before the Civil War,
but how we celebrate and what we give changes depending
on the time. We'll take a look at what Christmas
was like for American pioneers in the eighteen hundreds. At

(04:23):
a Christmas party, the revelers heard a horrifying scream from outside.
They rushed out to hear The screams were coming from
the sky, at least above the rooftops, but how could
that be. It was then that they learned Oliver Lurch
had disappeared, never to be seen again. Nothing says Christmas

(04:44):
like a poisonous weed. Well, you explained, mistletoe. We'll look
at why we're supposed to kiss under this deadly plant
during the holidays. A horrible fire breaks out at an
Oklahoma school during the holidays of nineteen twenty four, and
the ghosts of the children still linger at the sight.
You might be celebrating Christmas like a Viking and not

(05:07):
even realize it. From the holiday ham to the evergreen
in your living room. We'll look at how the pagan
celebration of Yule influenced modern Christmas traditions. Kids in America
anxiously await the arrival of Santa Claus bounding down the
chimney with gifts and candy for the good little boys
and girls. But that's America. What comes down the chimney

(05:28):
of Irish and Scottish kids may not be so jolly,
plump and loving. Some Gaelic children have to watch out
for the botic. But first, it's something that we're trying
to revive here on Weird Darkness, the lost tradition of
telling ghost stories at Christmas. Now, bult your doors, lock

(05:50):
your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me
into the Weird Darkness. Our fascination with ghostly tales around
Christmas time goes back thousands of years and is rooted

(06:13):
in ancient celebrations of the winter solstice. In the depths
of winter, Pagan traditions included a belief in a ghostly
procession across the sky known as the Wild Hunt. Recounting
tales of heroism and monstrous and supernatural beings became a
midwinter tradition. Dark tales were deployed to entertain on dark nights.

(06:36):
Ghosts have been associated with winter cold since those ancient times.
According to art historian Susan Owens, author of The Ghosts
a Cultural History, the Ode of Beowulf is one of
the oldest surviving ghost stories, probably composed in the eighth century.
This is the tale of a Scandinavian prince who fights
the monster Grendel. Evil and terrifying. Grendel has many ghostly

(07:00):
qualities and is described as a grima gaste or spirit
and a death shadow or shifting fog gliding across the land.
In sixteen eleven, Shakespeare wrote The Winter's Tale, which includes
the line, A sad tales best for winter, I have
one of sprites and goblins. Two centuries later, the teenaged

(07:22):
Mary Shelley set her influential horror story Frankenstein in a
snowy wasteland, although she wrote it during a wet summer
in Switzerland. The Victorians invented many familiar British Christmas traditions,
including Christmas trees, cards, crackers, and roast turkey. They also
customized the winter ghost story, relating it specifically to the

(07:44):
festive season. The idea of something dreadful lurking beyond the
light and laughter inspired some chilling tales. Both Elizabeth Gaskell
and Wilkie Collins published stories in this genre, but the
most notable and story of the period was You Guessed
It Charles Dickens, a Christmas carol from eighteen forty three,

(08:06):
which I have narrated in its entirety for you. If
you'd like to listen to it, It's free and you
can find it on the audiobooks page at Weird Darkness
dot com. In a Christmas tale, this vivid, atmospheric fable,
gloomy miser Ebenezer Scrooge is confronted first by the spirit
of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley, and thereafter by
a succession of Christmas ghosts. The revelations about his own

(08:31):
past and future in the lives of those close to
him lead to a festive redemption, which has spawned a
host of imitations and adaptations. Dickens wrote the story to entertain,
drawing on the tradition of the ghostly midwinter tale, but
his aim was also to highlight the plight of the
poor at Christmas. His genius for manipulating sentiment was never

(08:54):
used to better effect, but perhaps the most enjoyable elements
of the story are the atmospheric descriptions of the hauntings themselves,
the door knocker which transforms into Marley's face, and the sinister,
hooded figure of the ghost of Christmas Yet to come.
The tradition was further developed in the stories of M. R. James,

(09:15):
a medieval scholar who published ghost Stories of an Antiquary
in nineteen oh four. His chilling Gothic yarns focused on
scholars or clergymen who discovered ancient texts or objects with
terrifying supernatural consequences. Typically, James used the framing device of
a group of friends telling stories around a roaring fire.

(09:37):
In the introduction to ghost stories, he said, I wrote
these stories at long intervals, and most of them were
read to patient friends, usually at the seasons of Christmas.
Seminal stories include Number thirteen, Oh Whistle and I'll Come
to You and a school story like Dickens. James has
been widely imitated and adapted, with Stephen King's citing him

(10:00):
as an influence kings. The Shining certainly fits into the
genre of an ice bound chiller. Christmas ghost stories morph
into new forms as time passes, like ectoplasm. Spinoffs of
a Christmas Carol include Frank Capra's nineteen forty six classic
It's a Wonderful Life, in which the story is transposed

(10:21):
to small town America, and the twenty nineteen film Last Christmas,
the tale of a dysfunctional young woman permanently dressed as
a Christmas elf ripe for Yule Tide redemption. This contemporary
version conveys messages about integration and the value of diversity,
and m R. James's Martin's Close, the story of a

(10:41):
seventeenth century murder and its supernatural outcome, has also been
adapted for the small screen. So it seems the atavistic
desire to lose oneself in tales of the supernatural is
still with us. Christmas ghost stories enhance our enjoyment of
the mince pies and mulled wine, and the free of
a paranormal tale offsets the feel good festive spirit that

(11:04):
might otherwise be cloying. Some things never change. We will
still have a fear of the unknown, the yearning for
what is lost and a desire to be secure in
an uncertain, fast paced world mediated through smartphones and social media.
The seasonal ghost story is here to stay. The jolt

(11:26):
of fear and dread such stories convey make the Christmas
lights glitter even more brightly, this being weird darkness. You know,
I have some of those Yule Tide stories of specters.
Will do that up next. We've talked about Christmas time

(12:10):
ghost stories. Now let's actually tell a few. The following
weird tale took place in Liverpool, England, in the early
nineteen nineties, and it has never been explained. It all
started one foggy December evening in nineteen ninety one. On
the evening of Friday, December twentieth, nineteen ninety one, at
seven pm, the Edwards family of Dovecot decided to go

(12:33):
and do a bit of late Christmas shopping in Liverpool
City Center. Mister Edwards drove his wife and four kids
to town in his old Volvo estate and as usual,
finding a place to park proved to be a real pain.
Mister Edwards drove about searching desperately for a parking space
as his three sons and daughter gazed at the spectacular

(12:54):
Christmas lights and decorations lining the trees. The youngest of
the Edwards children was Abbey, who was only six years old.
She loved Christmas and for days she had been pestering
her mom and dad to take her to see the
big fir tree covered with colored lights in Church Street.
As Abby's dad was grumbling about finding a place to

(13:14):
park the Volvo, her mom suddenly pointed to a secluded
side street called Bold Place, which runs from Berry Street,
past the back of Saint Luke's Church up to Roscoe Street.
You're a genius, mister Edwards, complimented his wife, and he
turned left and drove up the poorly lit cobbled road,
which was on a bit of an incline. As soon

(13:35):
as the car was parked, the kids eagerly jumped out
of the vehicle and all four of them started asking
their parents what they were getting for Christmas. Meanwhile, at
icy fog rolled down the street, mister Edwards checked the
doors of the car were locked, then had a quick
discussion with his wife about where they were going to First,
he wanted to go to a shop in Bold Street

(13:55):
to buy his father a cardigan, but missus Edwards insisted
upon going to Dick's to buy a CD player for
her sister. Then the children started arguing too, they wanted
to go to various toy stores. Mister Edwards shouted, all right, well,
y'all just shut up. The family were about to walk
off when mister Edwards suddenly noticed something and his heart

(14:17):
skipped a beat. With a look of dread, he glanced
about Bold Place and muttered, Where's Abby? Everyone looked around.
Mister Edwards anxiously looked through the windows of the car,
but his little daughter wasn't there. Where is she gone?
Missus Edwards asked with a tremble in her voice. The
three boys looked about, but the streets were empty. Then

(14:40):
they all heard a faint voice scream out at the distance, Daddy.
The voice sounded like Abby, and it came from the
top of Bold Place, towards Roscoe Street. The Edwards family
rushed up the cobbled road, with the father leading the way. Abby.
Mister Edwards shouted, where are you? The gates at the
back of Saint Luke's were open, and mister Edwards surmised

(15:00):
that his daughter had wandered into the precincts of the
old church. He hurried into the grounds, followed closely by
his wife and their sons, and once again they all
heard Abbey cry out for her father, but the little
girl was nowhere to be seen, and the fog was
getting thicker by the minute. Mister Edwards didn't want to
alarm his wife and kids, but he wondered if some

(15:22):
perverted lunatic had grabbed his daughter and taken her into
the ruins of the old church. He handed his wife
the car keys and told her to go and bring
the torch from the vehicle. She did this, and mister
Edwards climbed up onto the ledge of a church window
and shone the flashlight into the deserted church ruins. The
interior was deserted, with nothing but rubble scattered about. Mister

(15:44):
Edwards knew that the Church of Saint Luke had been
gutted by an incendiary bomb in World War II during
the blitz. Only the shell of the building survived, and
the church had been left that way as a reminder
of the war. And yet it sounded as if Abby's
voice had come from inside the church. As Missus Edwards
helped her husband down from the window, she said, listen,

(16:06):
it was the faint, eerie sounds of a church organ,
and it seemed to be emanating from the church. Mister
Edwards said, the sound can play funny tricks at night.
Come on, let's go to the police. Missus Edwards started
to cry, but her husband said it'll be all right.
We'll find her love. She can't have gone far. The

(16:27):
family went to the police station in Hope Street and
told the death sergeant about their lost daughter. The sergeant
alerted all the patrol cars in the area and told
officers on the city Center beat to be on the
lookout for the girl. The Edwards family then rushed back
to Bold Place to resume their search for the girl.
They searched the grounds of Saint Luke's once again, and
after twenty minutes they were about to return to their

(16:49):
car when something happened which continues to puzzle the Edwards
family to this day. A tall man wearing a top
hat and a long black coat came out of the
grounds of Saint Luke's and walking with him was little
Abby holding his hand. When Abby saw her mom and dad,
she ran to them and started to cry. As her

(17:10):
father picked her up. The sinister man in black looked
like something out of the Victorian agent. He had long,
bushy sideburns, a pallid face, and staring, ink black eyes.
He stood outside the gates of the church and in
a creepy, low voice, the outdated looking stranger said, please
accept my sincere apology for any distress caused. He then

(17:34):
turned and walked silently back towards the rear of the
church ruins. Missus Edwards grabbed Abby from her husband and
said are you all right? Where have you been? Abby
just said I'm fine, mummy. Mister Edwards was furious and
he shouted after the man, oh, who are you? What's
your game? Eh? That a police patrol car came tearing

(17:55):
down the road, and mister Edwards told the officers of
the vehicle about the stranger who had returned his daughter.
Three police officers bolted from the car and rushed into
the grounds of the church wielding their batons, but the
police found no one. The grounds were empty. More police
turned up and the grounds were searched again with powerful torches,

(18:16):
but the place was deserted. However, several police officers also
heard the faint strains of a church organ playing nearby somewhere,
but they never determined just where the strange music was
coming from. One of the policemen asked little Abbey where
she had been, and the child gave a strange account.

(18:36):
She said an old woman in a shawl had grabbed
her hand and dragged her into the church where a
mass was being held. In the church, there were many
people dressed in old fashioned clothes. The women wore big hats,
and the men were all dressed in black. Abbey had
screamed for her father, but the old woman had put
her hand over the girl's mouth to silence her. Some

(18:57):
time later, a tall man came into the church and
hold Abbey from the old woman's clutches. He'd been the
man who had taken Abby back to her parents. The
intrigued policeman continued to interrogate the child, and he asked
her if the man had spoken to her about the
strange incident. Abby shook her head and then said the
man said he had been dead a long time, that's all.

(19:20):
A cold shudder ran up everyone's spine when they heard
the child's reply. Since that strange incident, the Edwards family
refuses to go anywhere near Saint Luke's Church, especially during
the Christmas period. Another ghostly tale comes from Ali g.
Around Christmas time two thousand and one, I had a

(19:42):
few weird experiences involving a spirit that must still live
in our house. One of the past owners, a lady,
died in our house. Around Christmas time. I felt the
presence more and a lot stronger than I usually did.
One night, I decided to draw whatever my hand felt
like drawing. I drew a bottle with ribbons exploding out
of it, then a yacht. Then it felt like someone

(20:05):
was moving my hand for me. My hand drew a
circular shape that at first looked like a peach. My
hand lifted and dropped and made a mark inside the circle.
My hand lifted again and dropped, and it made a
weird curve. My hand drew another dot. I regained full
control over my hand and I looked at what I

(20:26):
had drawn, a weird smiley face. I told my mom
about it, and she said to try it again the
next night, and so I did. I was painting some
landscapes in watercolors when I felt the presence again. My
mom had said that she thought her name was Faye,
so that was the name that stuck in my mind.
I asked, what is your name and I let my

(20:48):
hand be controlled. I wrote what looked like the name Faye.
I asked what the last name was. I wrote something
that looked like Edith. This was all confusing. I asked
why I was here and the reply looked like I'm lost.
I asked why I was here with me, and the
reply looked kind of crusby. It was still very hard

(21:10):
to read. I asked what, and the answer cleared up
a bit, but still not a real word. I asked
again and the final reply came what looked like crusty.
I'm still puzzled, but the spirit may have met. The
house was crusty, since its falling to bits in some areas.
Later on, my mom confirmed that the lady's name was Edith.

(21:34):
This freaked me out big time, and I still felt
the presence strongly for a while, until a few days
after Christmas. Bonnie Oh tells about a Christmas phone call
from heaven. When her mother passed away three years prior.
We were very close and I miss her daily. Last
Christmas evening, I went to bed and woke up to

(21:55):
the phone ringing. I answered it, and a voice that
was very familiar to me said, hello, There it was
my mother's voice. The line had a static noise and
it sounded to cut in and out. I said, this kid,
be you mom, You're dead. She said, oh, come on now,
She sounded a bit agitated, and then we were cut off.

(22:16):
My sixteen year old daughter was sleeping in the next
room and also heard the phone ring that night. I
know it was my mother's voice. She has a Norwegian
accent and it was her. This next story comes from
the Your Ghost Stories website, written by dar seventy seven.
Christmas nineteen ninety three, I went to stay with my

(22:39):
then best friend Terry. She and her parents had been
given a place to stay for a bit. It was
a house down the Old Highway in Nevada City, California.
This house still had everything from its previous tenants, even
a fridge that had been unplugged for who knows how
long that still had some food in it. Terras's parents
were bikers involved with the Hell's Angels and would rarely

(23:00):
make an appearance at home. Being sixteen, having that sort
of setup seemed really ideal at that time. We got
to come and go as we pleased. Sure, we starved
most of the time, but hey, we had the life,
not really. I became curious as to what had happened
to the previous occupants, and so I asked her if
she knew. The story was that there had been a

(23:23):
family in the house and a violent fight broke out
between the man of the house and some other guy.
The two ended up out on the porch, and the
other guy shot the family man dead. I didn't believe her,
and to prove it, she took me out to the porch,
which was a wrap around, to show me where the
bullet had exited the man's body, and took a chunk
off the swing gate of the porch. Sure enough, there

(23:45):
was a chunk in the gate. I immediately felt freaked
out by the whole thing, but it certainly explained why
everything was still in place and how her parents came
into possession of the house. Terry decided to take it
even further by telling me that people had claimed to
hear the man's boots walking the porch, and he'd even

(24:05):
been seen a couple times. I felt extremely uncomfortable staying
there after knowing all of this, so we would do
our best to stay gone from there. We slept there
only twice, showered once, Ate Ramen only once and decided
to get into the Christmas spirit. During that duration, there
was a bunch of stacked up boxes in the living

(24:26):
room left from the unfortunate family. In those boxes there
was some Christmas decorations. Being that time of year and
having no one around to get the place feeling festive,
we decided that we would put up some of them ourselves.
When we finished, we took a seat on the couch.
While we were sitting there, we started talking about the
ghosts and wondering whether or not we'd get to hear

(24:48):
his boots. That's when the living room light began to dim.
It dimmed a little, and then a little more, until
the room was dark. I became a little scared by this,
and we sat there in the dark, silently listening. Then
we heard it the bootsteps out on the porch. They
paced down the porch aways and then stopped. Terry jumped

(25:10):
up and ran to the light switch, turning it on.
We thought it would be best to call it a
night and headed to the bedroom. We were laying there
discussing the boot steps we had heard. Then we hear
something crawling around in the attic above us. We told
ourselves it was mice, but it had to have been
some big mice to make such loud noises. The following day,

(25:32):
we decided to leave the house. Before doing so, I
thought it'd be a good idea to shower and eat.
Turned out not being the case. The entire time I
was in the shower, I felt like someone was watching me.
An overwhelming feeling of danger sunk through me. I took
a very quick shower. Afterwards, I decided to cook some
ramen on the stove since I hadn't eaten in a

(25:54):
little while. In this kitchen covering all the counters were
random dishes stacked, and next to the stove was a
round table, also stacked with dishes. I was standing there
cooking the noodles when I heard a little ping, ping sound,
the type of sound you might hear if a water
drop hit a dish. So I look around to see
the source of this mysterious noise. I see nothing, so

(26:18):
I go back to staring at the noodles on the stove. Again.
I hear it ping, ping, and more pings, and so
there was a non stop pinging. When I looked to
my right in the direction of the table against the stove,
I see the source of the sound. It appeared to
be maggots falling from the ceiling, but there was no

(26:38):
way they could be falling from there, as there was
no hole or anything. But here they were rapidly falling
into the stacked dishes. I ran out into the living
room to grab Terry to show her what was happening,
and when we got back into the kitchen there was
nothing there. We ended up leaving the ramens sitting there
and vacating that house for a couple of days. After that,

(27:01):
I returned home and Terry and her family had relocated
once again. Paulina t sent in this one. I was
playing hide and seek with the other little kids from
my mom's village of Satua, Western Samoa. I was quite
young then, so I always followed my older cousin around.
It was the middle of the night and most of

(27:22):
the kids were used to hiding anywhere in the dark.
I wasn't used to it. I was only there for
the Christmas holidays. I actually lived in Australia. Since we
were all hiding in the graveyard, we were able to
find our way around in the light cast by the church.
We hid in the shadows and waited for the boy
who was it, But we could hear him coming, so
we kept quiet. The boy was pretty loud. We wondered

(27:46):
what he was making a fuss about, so we went
to see. He later told us he had walked into
the church as he thought that his brother was hiding there.
He saw a boy standing right at the front of
the altar. He didn't know if it was brother because
the boy's back was turned. He ran up and tapped
his boy on the shoulder. As soon as he did,
the strange boy disappeared and our friend fainted. We went

(28:11):
home to tell his parents. We got back to find
him still lying there, dead still. His parents took him
home and we never played in the graveyard at night again.
We later found out that the boy's brother had been
home the whole time. He hadn't been to the church
at all. What really scared us was that the boy

(28:32):
who fainted has been ill ever since that night and
still hasn't recovered. Whoever was in the church must have
been pretty mad that we kids disturbed him. This next
story is from the page. It was Christmas time of
nineteen ninety five or ninety six at my aunt's house

(28:52):
on a reservation in North Dakota. Some of my family
was in the living room watching television. The kids were
playing in the rooms or sleeping, and my uncle, aunt
and I were sitting at the table putting a puzzle together.
My cousin, who worked at a casino, was due home
around midnight or one am that night. As she pulled
up and was walking toward the house, she looked in

(29:13):
the window and saw me sitting at the table, my
uncle sitting across from me. She also saw someone standing
to the left of me, and someone standing in the corner.
She continued to walk in the house, thinking nothing of it.
When she got inside, she said her hellos, put her
stuff away and came to join us at the table.
As we were sitting there talking, she looked at me

(29:34):
and asked who was standing next to me a few
minutes ago, and who was in the corner. I told
her no one, and she said, yeah, there was someone
standing next to you. It looked like your mom, and
she was playing with your hair. I have long hair
which I used to wear down all the time. She said,
this person was running her hand on my hair as
a mother does to a child. It kind of freaked

(29:56):
me out, as I was probably only twelve or thirty
at the time. My cousin swears up and down that
someone was standing over me, rubbing my head and watching
me put the puzzle together with my aunt and uncle,
and that there was another person standing behind that person.
We got around to thinking the second person was probably

(30:17):
her mom, who passed away on our birthday a week
before Christmas back in nineteen ninety two. In my family,
we consider our aunts and uncles to be just like
our moms and dads. After thinking that it could have
been her, it didn't scare me so much. Around Christmas,
something strange almost always happens. We just think it's my

(30:38):
mom visiting us. When we'd darkness returns. A horrible fire
breaks out at an Oklahoma school during the holidays of
nineteen twenty four, and the ghosts of the children still

(30:58):
linger at the site. Also coming up, Christmas has been
celebrated for centuries, and gift giving has been around in
America since well before the Civil War, but how we
celebrate and what we give changes depending on the time.
We'll take a look at what Christmas was like for
American pioneers in the eighteen hundreds Christmas in the Old West,

(31:20):
but first kids in America anxiously await the arrival of
Santa Claus bounding down the chimney with gifts and candy
for the good little boys and girls. But that's America.
What comes down the chimney of Irish and Scottish kids
might not be so jolly, plump and loving. Some Gaelic
children have to watch out for the Bodic. That story

(31:42):
is up next. When darkness falls and the days get colder,

(32:16):
we gather around the fireplace to embrace the warmth. In
the old days, when there were no radiators, the chimney
was a treasure that helped us survive cold winters. Folk
Lore stories tell the chimney was as appreciated as feared
because it also was home to powerful spirits. Today, many
children are told Father Christmas comes through the chimney with

(32:39):
their gifts, but kids in Ireland and Scotland are cautious
because they have been told of the frightening Bodic who
enters the house using the chimney. The evil Bodic does
not need an invitation to visit your home. If he
decides to come to your house, he will do so,
and rest assured he's not paying a courtesy visit the

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Gaelic Bodic can be described in many ways. Some say
he is a ghost or trickster, Others call him the
devil himself. Stories of Bodic can be found in folklore
and modern literature. Scottish folklore accounts say Bodic comes to
the chimney to kidnap naughty children. In an Irish account
from the sixteenth or seventeenth century, Bodic is identified with

(33:21):
the Monanan McLear. This comparison is really not so far fetched,
because both Bodock and Monanan Maclear were shape shifters. In
Irish mythology, Menonon Maclear is the god of the sea,
healing weather, and a master of shape shifting. He was
the one who gave the two Ota Denon three incredible gifts.

(33:42):
It is said Manannon had many extraordinary magical powers. He
owned a self propelling boat named Scuba Tween or wave Sweeper,
a seaborn sherriyot drawn by a horse named water Phone
or Nbar, a powerful sword named Fregeric or the Answerer,
and a cloak of invisibility. In Scotland, stories of Bodock

(34:05):
are often told to frighten children into good behavior. The
Scottish Bodock is best described as a boogieyman, as explained
by Linda Radish in the book The Old Magic of
Christmas yule Tide traditions for the darkest days of the year.
If the dead could escape up the chimney, might not
a few wayward spirits come tumbling down. While the witch

(34:26):
used the chimney mostly to depart and re enter her
own home. The bodic, a Scottish version of the black
faced English boogeyman, liked to frequent other people's chimneys. If
he heard there was some particularly bad children up in
the nursery, he might avail himself of the flues in
those chimneys to get at them. There are few descriptions
of the Bodk, since most of his victims were successfully

(34:49):
scrubbled up by the chimney and never heard from again,
but he was supposed to resemble a little old man.
In the Scottish folktale Bodock aunt Seline, which I'm probably
butchering to pronouncing of the evil Bodeck appears as a
beggar and kidnaps a young girl, carrying her off in
a bag on his back. However, he's outsmarted by a
woman and some animals who decide to teach him a lesson.

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He leaves the bag in a house and asks a
woman to look after it until he returns the next day.
The woman agrees, and when the bodock vanishes out of sight,
she suddenly hears a scream from the bag. Let me
out of the bag, the girl cried. The woman let
her out, and they filled the bag with mice, rats, dogs,
black salmon and seals. The beggar came, where's the bag

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I left yesterday? Here you have it. Here, you have it,
said the woman. He took it on his back and
went away, sing a song by girl. The road is long,
he said, Meow, meow. From the bag he threw down
the bag, opened it and out leaped the dogs and animals.
They went straight for the beggar and killed him. According

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to those Scottish folk tales, the holiday season of nineteen

(36:17):
twenty four was a brutal one in Oklahoma. As winter
solstice was marking the change of seasons, bitter cold swept
across the plains. Fridgid temperatures raged south out of Western
Canada like a runaway freight train. Snow covered most of Oklahoma.
The roads were slippery and the chill caused a run

(36:38):
on heating stoves, and warnings were sounded for railroad men,
police officers, and others who worked outdoors at night. And
then came Christmas Eve, when a fire broke out in
a one room schoolhouse in Bab's Switch, located just a
few miles south of Hobart, Oklahoma. The tragedy is nearly
forgotten today, but at the time it turned Christmas into

(37:00):
a mournful holiday for the people of the region. Three
dozen people died on that cold night and left the
dark haunting that lingered behind for years. The evening of
December twenty fourth began with joy and laughter. The little
school building was packed with over two hundred students and
families enjoying the annual Christmas program. A Christmas tree decorated

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with lighted candles stood at the front of the room.
Beneath it was a pile of presents that were going
to be handed out to children at the end of
the evening. The fire began when a teenage student dressed
to Santa Claus was removing presents from under the tree.
He bumped against a branch and one of the candles
was knocked loose. The flames ignited the sleeve of a suit,
and things quickly spun out of control. Fire ignited paper decorations, tinsel,

(37:49):
and dry needles, and spread quickly across the stage. In
a panic, people rushed to the building's single door, which
opened inward, as far too many doors do public buildings
did in those days. As most people piled against the door,
it prevented anyone from opening it. Others rushed to the
windows for escape. Unfortunately, though the windows had recently been

(38:11):
fitted with bars to keep vandals out of the school,
a few men managed to break the glass and pass
smaller children into safety between the bars. A teacher, missus
Florence Hill, saved several of her students lives in this manner,
but she herself perished in the fire. When it was
all over, the fire had claimed thirty six lives, among

(38:32):
them several entire families. The dead and injured were transported
by car to Hobart, the nearest town of any size,
and a temporary morgue was set up in a downtown building.
As the numbers of the dead and injured, thirty seven
people were taken to the Hobart hospital were counted there
seemed to be one child that was not accounted for.

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The child, a little three year old girl named Mary Edens,
was reported missing, but her body was never fed. Her aunt,
Alice Noah, escaped from the school, but died a few
days later as she claimed that she carried Mary out
of the building but handed her to someone that she
did not know. Mary simply disappeared without a trace in
the wake of the fire. The Bab's Switch fire led

(39:17):
to stricter building codes in Oklahoma, especially for schools. It
was also one of the catalysts for modern fire precautions
against inward opening doors, open flames, locked screens over windows,
in a lack of running water near public buildings. Those
who died that night probably saved the lives of future
generations of Oklahoma school children. As it happened, there was

(39:40):
a strange twist to the Bab's Switch story. In nineteen
fifty seven, a California woman named Grace Reynolds came forward
and claimed that she was actually Mary Edens, the little
girl presumed killed in the nineteen twenty four fire. Mary
had been a toddler at the time, and her body
was never found. Reynolds's story was that she had been

(40:02):
handed out the window by her real mother into the
arms of a childless couple who assumed that none of
her relatives survived the fire and informally adopted her and
raised her as their own. Reynolds became a minor celebrity,
reuniting on the air with the Edmunds family on Art
Link Letters House Party television show, and later wrote a
book about her experiences entitled Mary Child of Tragedy, The

(40:25):
Story of the Lost Child of the nineteen twenty four
Babs Switch Fire. Sadly, though the whole thing was a hoax,
no one knows why Grace Reynolds believed or claimed to
believe that she was Mary Edens. It's possible that she
did believe that she was adopted, or that perhaps she
learned of the fire and saw a way to get

(40:45):
attention by claiming to be the missing little girl. Her
motives remain a mystery in any case. A local newspaper
editor uncovered the hoax and informed Mary Edmans's father about
what he had discovered. Mary's father asked that the editor
not publish his findings, as he believed that his wife
could not endure losing her child for a second time.

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The editor respected his wishes and his findings were not
revealed until nineteen ninety nine. Even this sad footnote to
the fire was not the end of the story. In
nineteen twenty five, a new school was built at the site,
but closed in nineteen forty three when the bab Switch
District was absorbed by the nearby Hobart School District. A

(41:29):
stone monument was placed at the scene, bearing a short
description of the fire and a list of the dead.
The dead that some say do not rest in peace,
but it's not the site of the school where ghosts
of the past are reportedly restless. The bodies that were
taken from the site were brought to Hobart and placed
in a temporary morgue which is now the fire station

(41:50):
and the short Grass Playhouse. It is rumored that the
ghost of a little boy has been seen throughout the building,
running around the fire truck bays and scampering down hallways.
There's also the ghost of a little girl who's been
seen on the stage of the playhouse. Who these spectral
children may be is unknown. Half of the dead from
the fire were children, and none of them were recognizable.

(42:14):
They had to be identified by jewelry, dentures, and anything
that might be unique to a person. Two little brothers
were identified by a toy gun found lying next to
one boy and the belt buckle of the other. The
identities of the boy and girl, who remain at the
place where their bodies were taken after the fire, remain
a mystery, but we can only hope that they have

(42:36):
found a little piece since their terrible deaths. By the
mid eighteen hundreds, the American Christmas tradition included much of

(42:57):
the same customs and festivities as as it does today,
including tree decorating, gift giving, Santa Claus, greeting cards, stockings
by the fire, church activities, and family oriented days of
feasting and fun. But for those in the Old West,
far away from the more civilized life of the East, pioneers, cowboys, explorers,

(43:19):
and mountain men usually celebrated Christmas with homemade gifts and
humble fare. Christmas for many in the Old West was
a difficult time. For those on the prairies, they were
often barraged with terrible blizzards and savage December winds. For
mountain men, forced away from their mining activities long before
Christmas in fear of the blinding winter storms and freezing cold.

(43:42):
The holidays were often meager, but to these strong pioneers,
Christmas would not be forgotten. Be it ever so humble
determined to bring the spirit of Christmas alive. On the
American frontier, soldiers could be heard caroling at their remote outposts.
The smell of venison roasting over an open hearth wafted
upon the winds of the open prairie, and these hardy

(44:04):
pioneers looked forward to the chance to forget their hard
everyday lives to focus on the holiday. Laura Ingles Wilder
wrote of the preparations for Christmas on the Kansas Prairie.
Ma was busy all day long cook and good things
for Christmas. She baked salt rise and bread, and engine bread,
and Swedish crackers, and a huge pan of baked beans

(44:26):
with salt, pork and molasses. She baked vinegar pies and
dried apple pies, and filled a big jar with cookies.
And she let Laura and Mary lick the cake spoon.
At very Christmas, Laura Ingles was delighted to find a
shiny new tin cup, a peppermint candy, a heart shaped cake,
and a brand new penny in her stocking. For in

(44:47):
those days, these four small gifts in her stocking were
a wealth of gifts to the young girl. Though perhaps modest,
These hearty pioneers made every attempt to decorate their homes
for the holiday with whatever natural materials looked attractive at
the bleakest time of the year, such as evergreens, pine cones, holly, nuts,

(45:08):
and berries. For some there might even be a Christmas
tree gaily decorated with bits of ribbon, yarn, berries, popcorn,
or paper strings, and homemade decorations. Some of these homemade
decorations were often figures or dolls made of straw or yarn.
Cookie dough, ornaments, and gingerbread men were also popular. In

(45:29):
other places, wood was simply too scarce to waste on
a tree, if one could be found at all. Other
pioneer homes were simply too small to make room for
a tree. At the very least. Almost every home would
make the holiday a time a feasting, bringing out preserved
fruits and vegetables, fresh game if possible, and for those
who could afford it, maybe even beef or ham. Many

(45:52):
women began to bake for the holiday weeks ahead of time.
Leaving the plum pudding to age in the pot until
Christmas dinner. Many of the homemade gifts, including corn husk, dolls, sachets,
carved wooden toys, pillows, footstools, and embroidered hankies, might have
had the family members working on them for months ahead
of Christmas. Others knitted scarfs, hats, mits, and socks. If

(46:17):
the family had had a good year, the children might
find candies, small gifts, cookies, and fruit in their stockings.
Christmas Eve would generally find most families singing carols around
the Christmas tree or fireplace. On Christmas Day, most would
attend church, return home for the traditional Christmas meal, and
spend the day visiting with friends and neighbors. Then, as

(46:41):
it is to day, Christmas would also find many a
mountain man, explorer or lone cowboy spending a solitary evening
without the benefit of festivities. The more things change, some
things inevitably remain the same. Coming up on weird darkness

(47:08):
at a Christmas party, the revelers heard a horrifying scream
from outside. They rushed out to hear The screams were
coming from the sky, at least above the rooftops. But
how could that be? It was then that they learned
Oliver Lurch had disappeared, never to be seen again. Plus
Earlier this month I shared some true reports of people

(47:29):
seeing Chris Kringle or what appeared to be Chris Kringle
in real life. But there are many more of those
strange sightings still to share. These stories and more are
still to come. It was Christmas Eve, December twenty fourth,

(48:05):
eighteen ninety and the Christmas festivities were in full swing
at the farm of Tom Lurch in South Bend, Indiana.
Friends had come to participate in the annual celebration. Even
the local Methodist minister, Reverend Samuel Malilayu, had come for
the evening. Outside, the snowfall had stopped and the clouds
had drifted away, leaving a beautiful landscape, a fresh white

(48:27):
snow lit by a bright moon. Lurch's sons, twenty year
old Oliver and twenty three year old Jim, were each
paying attention to a young lady. Oliver was singing songs
with his girl, Lillian Hirsch, who was the daughter of
a Chicago attorney who was also in attendance at the party.
Around ten pm, Oliver's mother asked him to fetch some

(48:48):
more drinking water from the well, and after throwing on
a good coat, he took two buckets and headed outside
to fetch the water as the festivities continued. About five
minutes later, the mood of the event was shattered when
Oliver started screaming. Tom Lurch and a host of the
partygoers ran outside to help Oliver, only to discover they

(49:09):
could hear his cries coming from somewhere in the night
sky above them. Help help, It's got me. The alps
and screams from Oliver seemed to be moving around above them,
sometimes closer, sometimes farther, but no one could see him
in the moonlit sky. Soon the cries stopped altogether, and
the Lurches feared the worst. Neighbors were called in and

(49:33):
the entire farm was searched, from the top of every
roof to the bottom of the well to the end
of every field. It was during this search, around ten PM,
that Oliver's voice pleaded for help again from above, one
more time, to the horror of the eight or nine
people standing in the yard of the house who heard it.
Then Oliver was heard from no more. The search turned

(49:55):
up no signs of the missing young man, but it
did reveal another strange detail. Oliver's footprints in the snow
stopped just two hundred and twenty five feet from the house,
only about halfway to the well where the trail ended.
One of the two buckets was found. There was no
sign of a struggle or of Oliver turning back, just

(50:16):
his normal footprints stopping in the middle of an open
space with no place for a person to go, but
gone he was. The search continued all night and well
into Christmas Day, but no further evidence could be found.
There was simply no sign of where Oliver Lurch or
his missing bucket could have gone. He was never heard

(50:38):
or seen again. The strange details of the case are
noted in the police records of South Bend, Indiana in
the United States, and the sheer number of witnesses and
the high credibility of many of them make the strange
event one hard to ignore. But what could have happened
to Oliver Lurch? He was too big for an eagle

(50:59):
or other known bird to carry, and no balloons were
flying that night. Some people suggested that maybe he was
killed by another party guest who was jealous of the
attention that he was getting from Lillian Hirsch, who then
used ventriloquism to project a voice into the sky. But
even if such a strange explanation was to be considered,
how was a body not found in the two day

(51:21):
search of the farm? The only other clue might be
in a disagreement among the witnesses of the event. While
most agreed that Oliver had cried, It's got me, a
small number of people reported that he had screamed, They've
got me. But who where did Oliver Lurch go? Did
you notice a major inconsistency in the story? I just

(51:44):
told the fact that Oliver is sent to get water
at ten pm, but that ten pm is also the
last time Oliver's voice was heard overhead. Believe it or not,
That's exactly how the story was reported by Joseph Rosenberger
in his article called What Happened to Oliver Lurch published
in the September nineteen fifty issue of the American publication

(52:06):
Fate Magazine. Most modern versions of this particular tale stem
from Rosenberg's nineteen fifty article, but also carefully trim out
that timing error, which is one reason that I present
his version of this story. Rosenberg didn't list his source
for the story in his Fate Magazine article, So for
a long time I thought that he was the first

(52:27):
person to present the tale, but it turned out it
appeared much earlier in a nineteen o six newspaper article
from which Rosenberg likely picked the tale up. This earlier article,
imaginatively entitled stories of Strange Disappearances, appeared in the Honolulu
Star Advertiser for November fourth, nineteen oh six, and details

(52:48):
out several accounts, and the last of these accounts is
that of Oliver Lurch's Strange fate. The nineteen oh six
version of the story is essentially the same as Rosenberger
later presented, with a few differences. It's clear that Rosenberger
added many details to the account, creating a brother for
Oliver and giving the two of them sweethearts at the party,

(53:09):
for example, which expanded the nineteen oh six version from
about one newspaper columns worth to the four page long
version that Rosenberger printed in Fate Magazine. The only real
detailed difference worth mentioning, though, is that the nineteen oh
six version of the story sets the year for this
event happening in eighteen eighty nine, rather than eighteen ninety,

(53:29):
as Rosenberger claims, not that the differences matter too much
in this case. And here's why. The facts in the
Oliver Lurch account have been checked by previous researchers, say
thanks to Joe Nichol on that one. And it's well
established that no Tom Lurch or Lurch farm existed in
South Bend, and a report of this incident most certainly

(53:49):
was never recorded in the police records of the town.
The main reason no record exists of the incident is
that Oliver Lurch's disappearance never actually happened, and in fact,
it's simply a new version of an older and fictional
story of a similar disappearance. Said older story. Charles Ashmore's
Trail was written and published in eighteen eighty eight by

(54:12):
the notorious American author Ambrose Bierce. Bierce's Tale told the
supposedly true story of a sixteen year old Charles Ashmore,
who was sent to fetch water from the well by
his family one snowy November night in eighteen seventy eight,
only to scream and disappear. Upon investigation, Charles's footprints in
the snow were found to lead about halfway to the well.

(54:34):
And then end with no signs of struggle or clue
where he went. Days later, the boy's mother walked past
the spot his trail ended and heard his voice calling,
as if from some great distance. This effect continued sporadically
for some months before fading away forever. The nineteen oh
six account simply took the premise of Ambrose Bierce's short story,

(54:57):
set it in a different time and place, false credible witnesses,
a reverend and a lawyer, along with lots of unnecessary
details to make it sound more real. Two key differences
appeared in the nineteen oh six version of the tale, though, First,
that Oliver Lurch's please for help were heard immediately after
his disappearance by many people, and that they came from

(55:19):
somewhere up in the night sky. Second, the choice to
set the event says happening on Christmas Eve, which therefore
combined a joyous family holiday with a tragic event. That's
good drama, that is. Both of these new details appeared
later on in two more variations of Bierce's disappearance in
the Snow Story, the next being a version created by

(55:42):
popular nineteen fifties radio personality Frank Edwards. So for the
simple reason that the events didn't actually happen, and that
the account itself is based on another false story. I'm
going to have to mark this account as fiction, but
still fascinating and proper for our Christmas creep. You've heard

(56:24):
the stories, tales whispered under full moonlight of an old
jolly man in a bright red suit who visits houses
on Christmas Eve to deliver presents to those deemed worthy
throughout the year. They call him Santa Claus. Most would
assume Santa is nothing more than a fairy tale, an
ideal to live up to, as the parents out there
might say. But would you be surprised to hear that

(56:46):
Over the years, many people have reported actually witnessing Santa
Claus in their homes or flying overhead with his reindeer
in the sky. Many of the witnesses will tell you
that they're embarrassed to share such stories. They might be
an adults now, but their memories of Chris Kringle sightings
are stronger than ever, and they swear that they're real.

(57:07):
For some time, Stephen Wagner of liveabout dot com has
been collecting unusual reports of Santa Claus sightings. Some date
back to the sixties and seventies, some to the more
recent years, but each account seems as genuine as any
report of a UFO or other paranormal phenomenon. It must
have been around seven thirty pm on a clear night

(57:28):
when we suddenly heard bells in the distance, getting closer
real fast. As we both looked up, there was the reindeer,
the sleigh, and Santa flying very fast and low over
my house. One witness describes Santa almost in Bigfoot terms,
a large man, possibly seven or eight feet tall, rustling
under his family's Christmas tree before vanishing out of sight.

(57:51):
Another paints Santa as eerie, a supernatural entity that left
her with a feeling of terror, like something out of
a strange dream. Sightings of Santa's reindeer and sleigh bring
to mind Newfork and Moufon submissions of Unidentified flying objects,
a girl named Jade recalls a bright red light beaming

(58:11):
down into her bedroom window and then seeing a small
object in the sky, followed by the sound of bells.
Then the object disappeared and the sky fell silent. All
of a sudden, I saw a red light beaming down
into my window. It was so bright and somehow I
knew it was him. These strange accounts of Santa sidings
continue to trickle in. In twenty sixteen, one man shared

(58:35):
his own personal tale of something that happened to him
in nineteen ninety when he was only seven years old.
He was staying in his grandparents' house, excited for Christmas morning,
of course, and yet in the middle of the night,
he was awoken in bed by the light sound of
bells and something peculiar entering the room. Now, the room
is very dark at the time, he says, so I

(58:55):
can only make out the unmistakable shape of Santa out
of the corner of my eyes. The dark figure moved
to the side of the bed and appeared to pat
his grandfather with his big red Santa glove, as strange
as that might sound, and then the figure gestured slightly,
and the witness fell asleep until morning. Another witness recalls
at Christmas Eve many years ago, when he woke up

(59:17):
at two thirty in the morning to use the restroom,
and what, to his wondering eyes should appear Santa Claus
sitting in a recliner eating a plate of cookies. I
silently tiptoed down the stairs and peeked my head out
around the corner to look into the living room. Santa
Claus was sitting on our recliner, eating one of the
cookies we left for him, and looking at our tree.

(59:38):
All the lights were on in the room. The guy
was way too big to be my father. He decided
to make a run for the restroom, avoiding eye contact
with Father Christmas. But when he returned, Santa was gone
and all the lights were out. Yet another strange encounter
leads one to wonder if perhaps Santa Claus may not
be all that he appears to be. According to one

(01:00:00):
did this day, his daughter claims that when she was seven,
she saw Santa, but something wasn't quite right. She told
me she was surprised to see him, he wrote, and
that she had the feeling the entire time that she
was looking at him that she was seeing something she
shouldn't be seeing. Is it possible that in cases like this,
Santa Claus is a paranormal entity that simply takes the

(01:00:23):
form of something expected. What would be the implications of that?
Maybe we ought to wonder exactly what we're inadvertently inviting
into our homes with this Santa Claus tale, the b
e ks black eyed kids show up at your door
and ask for permission to enter with Santa Claus, We've
already given him permission to enter. Something also interesting, Many

(01:00:44):
accounts involve people who saw Santa Claus at the very
specific age of seven. That's not even the most noteworthy pattern.
Many Santa Claus encounters, including several of those shared by
Stephen Wagner, involved hearing sleigh bells. This happens either during
a visual sighting of a sleigh like UFO, or simply
with the mysterious sound of bells alone. One witness tells

(01:01:08):
of an incident during the holidays many years ago in
New Mexico. His family was leaving a movie theater and
during the drive home, they spotted a bright red light
in the sky. I'm a very bad judge of distance,
he wrote, so I couldn't tell you how high up
it was, but it was definitely too low to be
in the aircraft. Also, there was no sound coming from
the light. I couldn't see too well behind the red

(01:01:29):
light except for the outline of a sleigh. But it
was what happened next that sealed the deal. One of
them rolled down a window and they heard the tell
tale sound of sleigh bells. Shortly after getting my parents' attention,
someone opens up their window to get a better view.
Instead of the foggy window, we actually heard bells like
sleigh bells. The sighting lasted several minutes before the unidentified

(01:01:54):
object and the sound of bells faded away. Others had
reported hearing sleigh bells in the day leading up to Christmas,
sometimes as early as October. I woke up and looked
up at the sky. I think it was a full moon.
I heard the bells and saw something flying over the moon.
I know it sounds like a fairy tale, but I
remember it so accurately. Misty g told her story when

(01:02:17):
I was nine years old. I could not get to
sleep on Christmas Eve because I was excited about presents
and I was wondering if my parents had anything to
do with the gifts that I'd received from Santa the
year before. We lived in Texas back then. That night
it was hot because the heater was on. I got thirsty.
I got out of bed and cracked open my door
to make sure no one was out in the living
room so I could get something to drink without being seen.

(01:02:40):
I also wanted to spy. When I opened the door,
I saw someone bent over, and then he stood up.
It was Santa Claus, dressed in the red and white
get up. Strangely, I could see the Christmas lights from
the tree shining through him. He was taking the stockings
down off the mantle and placing them on the coffee table.
When he started to turn around to put the next

(01:03:00):
stocking on the table, I closed the door and jumped
into bed. The next morning, I woke up and told
my sister what I had seen. I told her where
he had put the stockings. When we went into the
living room, the stockings were where I said he had
put them. We both turned and looked at each other
and froze for a moment. From then on, I have
told everyone that I believe in Santa Redditor Skiddy Scats

(01:03:23):
wrote This happened near Seattle, Washington, on Christmas Eve nineteen
fifty seven or nineteen fifty eight. My mom was at
the kitchen window when she yelled for my sister and me,
ages around five and seven, to come look. There was
Santa and an elf carrying a big brown bag walking
down the middle of the street. My dad went running
out the door to see if Santa would come over

(01:03:44):
and say Merry Christmas to us kids. But Santa, the Elf,
and the big brown bag had vanished. Another story, this
one from Carrie Kay. It was Christmas Eve nineteen sixty one.
We were living in Boardman, Ohio. My bedroom was at
the end of the house. I'd gone to sleep. I
don't know what time it was, but I know it

(01:04:05):
was very late. When I suddenly woke up. I was
staring at my bedroom door, which was caddy corner from
my bed. As the door slowly opened, I pretended to
close my eyes because I didn't want my mother or
father to catch me up in the middle of the night.
There was a night light in a hallway and one
behind the dresser in my room, so there was some light.
I was totally astonished, however, by who it was that

(01:04:27):
opened the bedroom door. I found myself looking at a
man dressed in a red suit. He had white trim
around his waist like fur, a long white beard, and
was wearing a Santa hat. He had red pants and
black boots. If I closed my eyes, I can still
see Santa standing in my door. It made such an
impression on me. He stood there and looked at me

(01:04:49):
for a few seconds, then closed the door. I pulled
the blankets over my head. I was so scared. Finally
I looked out, but no one was there. The next day,
I asked my mother if she or my father had
been out of bed the previous night. My mother said no.
In fact, my sister was only four months old, and
my mother told me that she had slept the night
for the first time since my sister was born. Neither

(01:05:12):
of my parents had gotten up. Both of them were tired,
and they both slept. So I don't know who or
what looked in my bedroom that night. When I told
my mother that I had seen Santa she got really
mad at me and told me that no, I had not,
But I know what I saw. It was Santa Claus.
I swear this story did happen, and I know I
wasn't dreaming from Redditor Scarlet Dragon. I had an unusual

(01:05:37):
visitor on Christmas Day two thousand and eight. I'm pretty
sure it wasn't Santa Claus passing by my house in Bloomington, Indiana.
The day started in typical fashion with the opening of
gifts around the Christmas tree. I served at early Christmas
dinner for family and friends, and everybody departed by five pm,
except my sister and brother in law who lived with me.
They were asleep in a bedroom at the end of

(01:05:58):
the hall, but their door was open. I went into
my bedroom with my dog Toby and shut the door securely.
Toby curled up at the foot of my bed to sleep,
like he always does. It was chilly, so I pulled
the blankets and comforter up around my head and curled
up to nap for about an hour. I was just
dozing off when I heard the latch on my bedroom
door open. I waited several seconds for my sister or

(01:06:21):
brother in law to say whatever they'd come to say,
but there was no other sound. It was almost seven pm,
so my bedroom was pitch black. I'd left the lights
on in the kitchen and the bathroom, and there were
lots of Christmas lights in the living room, so the
hallway would have been well lit. I would be able
to see whoever was at the door just by lifting
my head. I pushed the blankets down and lifted my

(01:06:43):
head from the pillow, But just as I would have
been able to see who was in the doorway, an
extremely bright light hit me right in the face. I
shielded my eyes and yelled, turn out that if and light,
you're blinding me. The light immediately disappeared, and I heard
the bedroom door latch close. My bedside light is a
touch lamp, so I tapped it on and looked around
the bedroom. There was no one there except me and Toby.

(01:07:07):
Toby jumped off the bed and went to the door
without showing any signs of alarm. At first, I wasn't
frightened because Toby is a Dutch shepherd and was trained
to be an excellent watchdog. Since Toby was already up,
I decided to let him go outside and see what
Cis or her husband needed. When I went into the hallway,
I could see that both of them were still in bed.

(01:07:28):
I took Toby to the living room to let him outside,
and there was nobody there either. Ordinarily, I'm not a
skittish person, and strange noises or lights wouldn't alarm me,
but this situation was just too eerie and the light
had made my skin crawl. Let me add that the
latch of my bedroom door is broken in such a

(01:07:50):
way that the inside door handle must be jiggled for
the latch to pop out and engage. It makes a
very distinctive sound that I'm used to listening for, because
if it does latched, the door swings open. I'm absolutely
positive that the door was latched closed when I got
into bed, just as I'm certain that it was the
door latch I heard during the incident. When I left

(01:08:12):
the bedroom, the door was latched closed again. I couldn't
understand how my sister or brother in law could have
come into my room and then returned to their own
bed and crawled under the covers in a few seconds.
It took me to reach the hallway, but I figured
it had to be one of them, since Toby always
barks and growls at everybody and everything that he doesn't

(01:08:32):
immediately recognize. When my brother in law got up to
get ready for work that night, I asked him what
he'd wanted earlier in the evening when he opened my door.
He looked puzzled and said, I never got up, and
I certainly never opened your door. I slept soundly the
whole time I was in bed. Okay, So I asked, Sis,
did you want something earlier this evening when you opened

(01:08:54):
my door? She also looked puzzled. And told me I
dozed off and on, but I never gone out of bed,
and I never saw or heard anything in the hallway.
She leaves their bedroom door open at all times, and
she faces the hallway so she can see if anyone
is coming or going in the house. So who was
my special Christmas visitor? And how did they get in

(01:09:16):
and out so quickly? Like most people, the thought of
loved ones are always close at hand during the holiday season.
When I first went to lie down, I was thinking
how happy I was that my small family had enjoyed
a pleasant Christmas, but that it would have been so
much better if my mother and my brother had still
been alive to share it with us. I'd like to
think that it was my brother's spirit stopping by to

(01:09:38):
say Merry Christmas. I still think of you too. Haven't
been able to debunk this strange event or find any
kind of rational explanation. I'm half afraid that my heart
stopped during my sleep, and the light I saw was
the bright light people report after near death experiences. Leave
it to me to see the stairway to heaven and
ruin my chance at eternal paradise, saying, turn out that

(01:10:01):
E f and light. I've made a mental note that
if I ever see another bright light, to clean up
my language just in case. Do these unusual tales mean
that Santa Claus actually exists? Perhaps not, but I'm always
reminded of what Art Bell once said, something along the
lines of these people know what they saw. It's up

(01:10:22):
to you whether or not to believe them. We also
have the more esoteric possibility that in some cases Santa
Claus encounters may involve some kind of tulpa or manifestation
of thought, or global consciousness, or perhaps certain paranormal phenomena
are given form by our own expectations, and during this

(01:10:43):
time of the year around a Christmas tree, that formless
entity might begin to take shape into something familiar. Well,
as they say, the truth is out there when we'd
darkness returns, I'll tell you how you can celebrate Christmas

(01:11:05):
like a Viking. In fact, you might already be doing
it and not even know it. Up next Christmas time. Noel, Nativity,

(01:11:32):
yule Tide, even the many different words that we used
to describe the Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of
Jesus Christ reflects how this festival was born of a
wide array of cultures. For the Vikings, Germanic tribes, and
other peoples of pre Christian Europe. This celebration was actually
meant to honor the winter solstice, hard to celebrate Christmas

(01:11:54):
before Christ was born. Known as Yule, the celebration commemorated
the events of the waning year and honored the gods
with a festival of song, food, drink, and sacrifice. But
with the steady spread of Christianity throughout Europe, many pagan
beliefs and celebrations, including Yule, were stamped out. Today, hints

(01:12:14):
of these ancient faiths and rituals of the Vikings can
be found in some of the most popular Christmas traditions.
This is the story of Yule, the Viking winter festival
that helped create the modern Christmas celebration. The earliest mention
of Eule is found in the wonk of a chronicler
and prolific historian called Bead, an English monk who was

(01:12:35):
instrumental in the spread of Catholic Christianity in northern England.
Writing in seven to twenty five AD, Bead described the
holiday of pagan Britons, Anglo Saxons, Vikings, and other Germanic
groups noting that the old Pagan calendar combined the Roman
months of December and January into a single period called Guley,

(01:12:55):
He wrote the months of Guley derived their name from
the day when the sun turns back and begins to increase.
In other words, this double month was built around the
winter solstice, the time of year when daylight, which decreases
steadily during the winter, starts to increase again. To the
ancient Vikings and other Germanic peoples, many of whom lived
in the far northern reaches of Europe where the absence

(01:13:18):
of the winter sun is felt strongest, the return of
long sunny days was considered a rebirth and was celebrated
in the festival of Joel or Yole. The origins of
these words are murky, but generations of etymologists believe that
there are the basis for the modern word jolly in English.
The whole season called Yule Tide was among the most

(01:13:39):
important holidays in Pagan Europe from modern day Estonia to
the north of England. Yule was the highlight of the
deep midwinter, a welcome respite from the darkness and the
biting cold. For centuries, the only hint at the existence
of Yule was in the word itself, suggesting a time
of rejoicing and merriment at the darkest point of the year. However,

(01:14:00):
during a revival of interest in all things Viking in
the nineteenth century, the lost traditions of the holiday were
rediscovered and were apparently not so lost after all. Indeed,
many of the Vikings Yuleti traditions are still practiced in
some form today on Christmas. The rites, ceremonies, and festivities
of Yule were rife with references to important gods of

(01:14:22):
the old Norse and Germanic pantheons, most significantly Odin, one
of whose name was Julnar, which indicated a connection to
the holiday of Joel or Yule. The ancient Vikings and Goths,
the period prior to Yule was a time of heightened
supernatural activity. Undead creatures called dragour wanted the earth. Magic
was more potent, and Odin himself led a ghostly wild

(01:14:46):
hunt across the night sky to appease restless spirits and
gods alike. The Vikings held ceremonies that included sacrifices of
various plants, animals, and beverages. The ancient Europeans revered trees
in particular, and bonfires were lit to ward off the
darkness and celebrate the return of the sun. This particular

(01:15:06):
ritual gradually evolved into the Yule log, a specially selected
tree that was burned to insure warmth throughout the longest
night of the year. Similarly, evergreen trees were mounted in
the corners of homes and longhouses and were decorated with
pieces of food, ruins, statues, and strips of cloth. These
trees are still erected in the living rooms of modern

(01:15:29):
observers of Christmas. However, the most disturbing and controversial pagan
Yule rituals may have been the sacrifice of animals and humans.
It's unclear whether human sacrifice really did occur on Yule
Tide or if this was merely a rumor started by
Christians in order to discredit the old religions, but numerous

(01:15:49):
accounts described the killing of young men in order to
atone for the misdeeds of humans on earth. The Yule
festivities may have begun with Modrinite or Mother's Night, during
which a bore called Ausonagulter was sacrificed to the god
of virility Freyer and his twin sister Freya, the goddess
of fertility. Before eating the meat, Viking chieftains and warriors

(01:16:11):
would lay their hands on the boar's bristles and swear
drunken oaths to perform deeds ranging from the ridiculous to
the heroic to the outright barbaric. In the epic Old
English poem Beowulf, for example, the hero swore to kill
the dragon Grendel in a ceremony called Hehestringing, while the
noble herald fair Hair swore not to cut his hair

(01:16:32):
until he united Norway into a single kingdom under his leadership.
Throughout the three to twelve day celebration of Yule, bundles
of grain were shaped into so called Yule goats, and
young men would wostle or dress in costumes and dance
from house to house, singing in exchange for drinks and food.
As Christian missionaries spread into the pagan heartlands of Northern Europe,

(01:16:55):
they encountered these rituals and found themselves presented with a
unique challenge. For Christians, the worship of multiple gods was intolerable,
yet the prospect of forcing proud and notoriously violent Vikings
and Germanic tribes to reject their beliefs must have been
just as on appetizing. Instead, the missionaries fell back on
a time tested Christian compromise called interpretatio Christiania or Christian interpretation.

(01:17:22):
By learning the myths and religious beliefs of the Norsemen,
they could identify parallels within Catholicism and link these two
belief systems together, making conversion more palatable to those reluctant
to give up their centuries old practices. One such tactic
was to change the actual date of the birth of Jesus,
which historians believe was likely in springtime to coincide with

(01:17:45):
the pagan's raucous winter celebrations. As such, the celebration of
the Birth of Jesus Christ in December was possibly directly
inspired by pagan calendars. But while missionaries like Bede were
hard at work melting Paganism with the Bible, the real
work of conversion was political. Perhaps the most important figure

(01:18:05):
in binding Yule to Christmas was the Norwegian king Hakon
the Good, who attempted to convert the whole of Norway
to Christianity during the tenth century AD. Hakon had spent
his childhood in England and returned to Norway as a
full fledged Christian intent on spreading his faith. He realized quickly, however,
that the conservative chieftains of his kingdom were resistant to

(01:18:28):
the new religion, and so he struck a compromise. According
to the saga heims Kringla, Hacon decreed that Yule would
be celebrated not on Midwinter Eve, but on the twenty
fifth of December, coinciding with Christmas. Under this new law,
Norwegian vikings were required to celebrate either holiday with a
supply of ale or else pay substantial fines. While Hakon

(01:18:51):
was killed in battle, a brief pagan revival did take place,
but the effects of his law held. From then on,
Yule and Christmas became synonymous throughout Scandinavia, and their traditions
were blended together. Today, what remains of Yule Tide celebrations
is the Yule log or Christmas tree, the Christmas ham

(01:19:11):
or Yule boar, and the word Yule itself. Many of
these traditions were strongest in the former Viking homelands of Sweden, Norway, Iceland,
and Denmark, where yule goats and watling carried on long
after the disappearance of the old gods. One god who
may not have disappeared, however, was Odin instead. Some historians

(01:19:32):
posit that the old white bearded god, on horseback or
seated in a cart drawn by a reindeer, was transformed
into Santa Claus, otherwise known as Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas.
Emigrants from Germany and Scandinavia brought their version of Santa Claus,
as well as many of their best loved Yule Tide traditions,
with them to the Americas and other parts of the

(01:19:54):
world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but with the
decline of state enforced Christianity and renewed interest in pre
modern Europe, during the same period, the pagan celebration of
Yule was revived. As neo pagan religions like Lavayan Satanists,
Norse Revivalists, and Wickans arose in Europe and North America,
a new form of Yule was born. These groups are

(01:20:16):
said to be drawn to the holiday for its celebration
of nature, the rhythms and patterns of the seasons and
the stars, and its unfathomably ancient roots. Though scholars admit
that the lack of written records and the evolution of
cultures through time means that the details of this unique
holiday might be lost to history, and nonetheless note how
without them, the modern Christmas might not exist. Indeed, no

(01:20:40):
matter how exactly the Vikings celebrated their pre Christian Christmas,
the inheritance of their traditions makes the modern holiday all
the richer and more fascinating. Nothing says Christmas like a
always in this weed. Well, I don't know. You explain, missletoe.

(01:21:04):
We'll look at why we are supposed to kiss under
this deadly plant during the holidays when weird darkness returns. Ever,

(01:21:30):
wonder what the meaning is behind the kiss under the
mistletoe that takes place at holiday gatherings. It's another of
the pagan traditions that managed to survive the purge that
was done by church authorities when they were wiping out
the old ways. Their tradition is still around, but most
people don't know the story behind it. Well, now you will.
Norse legend tells the story of Baldur, son of Odin

(01:21:53):
and half brother of Thor, who was a favorite among
the gods. When he began having nightmares about his his
own death, his mother frig asked that the numerous other gods,
gods of steel, fire, animals, illness, and the others, watch
out for Baldour and keep him safe. The Norse gods
were not immortal, they could be killed just like men.

(01:22:15):
But Loki, the trickster god, discovered that frig had forgotten
to ask mistletoe, a poisonous plant, to keep Baldour safe,
So when a branch of mistletoe was thrown at the
handsome beloved Baldour, he immediately died. Saddened by her loss,
Frigg declared that mistletoe would never be overlooked again, and

(01:22:35):
instead of spreading sorrow, those who passed under it should
kiss to spread joy and love. Since that time, mistletoe
has been a joyous part of holiday celebrations, even though
its origin is one of death and sorrow. Thanks for listening.

(01:23:04):
If you like the show, please share it with someone
you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters,
or unsolved mysteries like you do. All stories in Weird
Darkness are purported to be true unless dated otherwise, and
you can find source links or links to the authors
in the show notes. The Lost Tradition of Christmas ghost
Stories is from conspiracy journal Sally O'Reilly for Ancient Pages,

(01:23:28):
Your ghost Stories dot com and live about dot com.
The Christmas Disappearance of Oliver Lurch is from anomaly info
dot com. How to Celebrate Christmas leg of Viking is
by Morgan Dunn for All That's Interesting More Real Santa
Sidings is from Rob Schwartz for Stranger Dimensions. Ghosts of
the Babs, Switch School, Christmas Fire and A Kiss under

(01:23:50):
the Missiletoe were both written by Troy Taylor. Beware the
Bodeck at Christmas is from Ellen Lloyd for Ancient Pages,
and Christmas in the Old West is by Kathy Weisser
for Legends of America. Again. You can find links to
all of these in the show notes. Weird Darkness is
a production and trademark of Marler House Productions, Copyright Weird Darkness.

(01:24:13):
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light. Acts four, Verse twelve.
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is
no other name under heaven given to men by which
we must be saved. And a final thought, what if
Christmasy thought doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas
perhaps means a bit more The Grinch, Doctor Seuss. I'm

(01:24:39):
Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the weird darkness.

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