Christmas Ghost Stories to Read at a Party?

December 5, 2021 9:40 AM

I'm looking for Christmas ghost stories to be read aloud by the guests at a Christmas party. I've done some searching and there a ton of Christmas ghost stories out there, so any suggestions on good ones that are relatively short to be read like this are much appreciated.
posted by star gentle uterus to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

I highly recommend Rosemary Timperley's A Christmas Meeting - it's 2 or 3 pages of very satisfying classic festive ghost story. I have read it aloud with a group of people and it went down very well. That link is to an annoyingly advert-filled website but the story also appears in Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories.
posted by Lluvia at 12:07 PM on December 5, 2021

MR James' ghost stories were written to be read aloud at Christmas, and the BBC has a tradition of filming adaptations of them for the festive season.

If you want a short, punchy classic you can try "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" [text on wikisource]. "Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance" is also creepy [text]
posted by sukeban at 12:18 PM on December 5, 2021

(There isn't anything particularly Christmas-y in the MR James stories, but the tradition of telling them definitely is)
posted by sukeban at 12:22 PM on December 5, 2021

Is this a good time to link to this old ask? Maybe not ghosty…
posted by rabidsegue at 12:24 PM on December 5, 2021

M.R. James seems the obvious choice, since his stories are just the right length to be read out loud. You can also be inspired by the way he delivered them. He'd come down to the common room from his study with his handwritten manuscript, blowing out all the candles but one, by which he read the story to a bunch of expectant/increasingly terrified students.
posted by Atrahasis at 2:26 PM on December 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

High Spirits by Robertson Davies. Every year, Davies wrote and read aloud a ghost story for his college's Christmas party, and the book is a collection thereof.
posted by ZaphodB at 8:00 AM on December 7, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! Lots of great ideas here, it's been a big help!
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:30 AM on December 7, 2021

This book by Jerome K. Jerome might work.
posted by wittgenstein at 1:37 PM on December 8, 2021