Today’s festive Christmas season was once a dark and eerie time

When you think of Christmas today, you probably imagine twinkling lights, warm fires and a mug of hot cocoa. But those snug traditions are actually recent additions to Christmas lore. For centuries, Christmas came with a much darker and eerier side.

While researching the history of Christmas traditions, Baylor University’s Michael P. Foley, Ph.D., uncovered many forgotten Christmas customs and folklore, including those “scary ghost stories” alluded to in the 1963 holiday classic, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year.”

Ghost stories at Christmas have been around for centuries, and Foley said that taking a closer look at the darker side of Christmas, with its presence of these winter ghouls and ghosts, can help us find a deeper appreciation for the wonder and joy of the season.

The lyrics in “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” – “There’ll be scary ghost stories, And tales of the glories of, Christmases long, long ago” – offer one of the few modern-day nods back to this darker time of Christmas. While those lyrics may sound whimsical today, they are based in historical and profound truth: Christmas was not always the purely sentimental season of “sugar plums dancing in our heads,” Foley said.

Season of peril and hardship

Before Christmas became the heartwarming celebration we know today, winter was a season of peril and hardship. Long nights, bitter cold and food scarcity made it a time when evil was thought to roam freely.

Even the biblical telling of Christmas itself involves fear, uncertainty and the threat of death.

“After a stressful night seeking lodging for a woman in labor, the Infant Jesus is born in a foul stable and hunted by murderous henchmen,” Foley said.

This is hardly the idyllic scene of modern holiday cards. For long-ago ancestors, winter was “a dreadful season that involved a constant fight against the cold and a struggle to stay fed,” Foley said. Survival, not celebration, was the dominant theme.

Taking a closer look at the darker side of Christmas, with its presence of these winter ghouls and ghosts, can help us find a deeper appreciation for the wonder and joy of the season. – Michael Foley, Ph.D.

Mythology and the Winter Solstice

Pre-Christian European mythology portrayed winter as a time when evil prevailed. The nights were long, weather was cold and crops had died off. The Winter Solstice brought a season when demons, ghosts and witches were said to be active. These beliefs persisted, shaping the folklore that still lingers in cultural memory, Foley explained.

“Today, Halloween is the one night a year for ghouls,” Foley said. “For the Celts, it was merely opening day of a long and dark season that would last until Spring.”

Brutal characters of Christmas

According to Foley, in response to the fear of the darker months, a cast of terrifying Christmas characters populate the season, bringing with them both benevolence and brutality. European folklore is full of these spirits, including a variety of goblins, ghosts and even werewolves, most of whom are tasked with terrorizing misbehaving children. Some of the most memorable (and horrible) include:

• Berchta and Lutzelfrau (Germany) are witch-like figures who sometimes bring gifts and sometimes disembowel disobedient boys and girls.

• Père Fouettard (France), Hans Trapp (Alsace-Lorraine) and Schmutzli (Switzerland) are all associated with abducting and devouring naughty children.

• Krampus (Austria), the horned demon, punishes the wicked at Christmastime.

• Yule Cat (Iceland), Foley’s personal favorite, has “the curious preference for eating people who did not get new clothes for Christmas.” Foley suspects this legend was designed to remind grown-ups to clothe the poor for an Icelandic winter, ultimately reminding us of the moral economy of generosity.

Modern characters like the Ghosts of Christmas Past and the Grinch also echo these older traditions but in a gentler form, Foley said.

Psychology behind the darkness

So, what are we to make of these strange stories? Foley believes the devious legends of Yuletide serve as a way to cope with real, winter-related hardships, which were not merely physical but also psychological. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), stress, depression, suicide, alcohol abuse, family strife, etc., add to the hardships of surviving the long, cold winter and they remain a perennial challenge, Foley said.

“The old spooky elements of Christmas are a way of articulating and coping with these issues,” Foley said. “Myth and legend give voice and face to subconscious stress and thus become a kind of cathartic therapy.”

Light against darkness

Ironically, it is these ghouls and goblins on one side of Christmas that make the bright side brighter. The contrast between fear and festivity heightens the sense of coziness of the season, also known as “comfort in the midst of discomfort.” The dark side of Christmas, Foley said, is like the principle of chiaroscuro in art: It makes the lights of Christmas that much brighter.

“Christmas coziness is one of the greatest feelings on earth, but it requires the presence of a real threat. It is only when the weather outside is frightful that the fire is so delightful,” Foley said. “And it’s even more delightful when you know, as they do in Norway, that that fire is keeping witches from coming down your chimney and knocking down your china as they fly around the room.”

So, this holiday season, as you sip cocoa by the tree, remember that Christmas cheer shines brightest against the shadows. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

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