01/08/2018
“Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories,” Jerome K. Jerome.
The Victorians used to love scaring each other silly at Christmas. It is from this tradition that we get the spooks and spectres of Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ that are still so widely enjoyed today, whether it be a cantankerous, singing Albert Finney or a world-weary, comical Bill Murray taking on the plum role of Ebenezer Scrooge. But what were they thinking of? What on earth does Christmas have to do with ghosts and scary stories? And why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus in mid-December when all the biblical scholarship points to him having been born sometime around April?
The 25th of December was not chosen on a whim by early Christians as the date for their most important holy day. It was taken to replace the already existing pagan festival of Yule which celebrated the Winter Solstice; the shortest, darkest day of the year. The day that the sun itself died and was reborn. On the night of December 24th, our Christmas Eve, with the life-giving sun at its weakest, the veil that separates the worlds of the living and the dead was believed to be at its thinnest, and those poor souls with unfinished business could cross over in the depths of the night to try and complete their tasks or settle the scores that would bring them eternal peace. But, like Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come, once the cock crows and day breaks they are banished back to their netherworld, satisfied or not; for one more year at least.
The feast of Christmas with all its eating, drinking and being merry is a celebration of the life, love and family around us now. A celebration of feelings of the cosiest warmth amidst the bitterest cold. The Victorians understood that peeking out into the darkness could make the light feel brighter, the fire warmer, the family closer. But some unsettled souls don’t have to wait for Christmas Eve to walk the earth. Some of them are always out there, in the darkness, peeking in. Come to Blast from the Past Vintage, 8pm, Saturday 4th and let your friend Oscar tell you all about it.
Matthew Greenfield, RJ Lloyd Creepypasta, The Story of Oscar. Tickets £4, book now:
The Coach House presents a spine-tingling new one-man show “CreepyPasta, The Story of Oscar.” Coming to Blast Vintage shop, Liverpool, August 4th, tickets £4. RJ Lloyd and Matthew Greenfield have created a brilliantly written, new psychological thriller to touch the heart and chill the spine. A...
