“It’s the most wonderful time of the year. There’ll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, and caroling out in the snow. There’ll be scary ghost stories. And tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.”
So, for this most wonderful time, I thought I’d peruse Reddit and see if I could find any first-person ghost stories about the Christmas Season. I wasn’t disappointed. See what you think:
“I was about 16, it was Christmas Eve, and it was snowing heavily. My parents and I were sitting in the living room with the Christmas tree lights on, having eggnog and opening up my stocking gifts as was our tradition.
We suddenly heard the door knocker bang three times. We saw no one out the window, but my dad opened up the door and looked down. An injured black cat lay across the threshold in the snow. What was messed up was that there were no human footprints in the snow, no tire tracks, and, logistically, there was no way we would not have seen anyone if they put the cat there.
My family and I are huge animal lovers. Of course, we took it in and made it comfortable. It was a young male who was not fixed and had been in a terrible fight. A few days later, we took it to a vet, and he recovered nicely. My mom gave it to a friend of ours who lived down the street. About four or five months later, the cat, now happily part of the family, woke them all up with howls and screams, just freaking out.
Turns out an electrical fire had started in the garage, and one of the cars was also on fire. They all woke up. Everyone was ok, and the car didn’t blow up. Only the garage was damaged. But they were very lucky in general, especially because there was all kinds of flammable stuff in the garage.
Initially, they had named the cat something stupid, like Shadow, but then they renamed him Clark after Superman. LOL! He was a really nice cat and lived to be pretty old.”
“During the 80s, my family had a Christmas party which ended late in the wee hours of the morning. My mom and her cousin were taking out the trash before bed when they saw their neighbor across the street sitting by the gutters and smiling at them.
She waved, and the girl smiled and waved back. Then her cousin shook her and said, “That’s not (neighbor’s name)!” She then realized that their neighbor had shoulder-length hair, and the girl in front of them had long, ankle-length hair and was wearing a long white sleeping gown.
They both started screaming and ran back inside the house. The next morning, they learned that their neighbors were not home, spending Christmas in the province. Not sure if it was really a ghost, but here in the Philippines, it would be so uncomfortable wearing a long sleeping gown since we’re in a tropical country.”
“I remember one Christmas Eve night when I was 8 or 9, my family and I went to bed after meeting with relatives. I was lying in bed, just anxious about the next morning, in order to sleep. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but couldn’t. This wasn’t unusual for me, as I normally couldn’t sleep well as a kid (I still have some sleeping problems today), so I just stayed there until I got tired or the sun came up.
Well, after a while, a loud scraping sound came from my roof. It sounded like someone dragging a long piece of something hard all the way across from one side of the house to the other. I woke up and went to tell my parents. When I went into their room, they both got up because I was loud and scared.
They said they didn’t hear anything and told me to go to bed. The next day, there was debris from the roof in our yard. Still to this day, we do not know what went across our roof.”
“I thought I’d share a story that I’ve never told anyone except my sister, but I don’t think she actually believed me, though she pretended. I’m 24 now, but I was six at the time, Christmas Eve, 2006. I was a full believer in Santa just as much as I believed in God, and I really do think the saying “seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing” might have some truth to it, even when hearing. Maybe Santa is just a projection of conscious thought becoming a real experience, considering all these beliefs and expectations of something put into a very specific time period, if that makes sense, that time period being Christmas. Maybe he’s a ghost or an entity of some sort that we don’t fully understand, but many of us have experienced it. Whatever the case may be, here is my story.
I was just getting done setting up the cookies and milk, fresh out of the oven, with my parents as we all went to bed. It was around 9 or 10, I want to say. Eventually, after falling asleep, I woke up randomly at night, but I’m not too sure what time it was. I just lay there awake, remembering it was Christmas Eve night, and Santa was supposed to be out and about.
I was probably thinking of whether he had already come or not when I suddenly heard faint jingles in the distance coming from outside. The jingles got closer and louder, and all I could think at the time was SLEIGH BELLS. Very quickly, as the sound closed in on my house, I heard the reindeer land on my roof, trampling across. The sound of a sleigh landing and sliding on my roof came instantly after, and it all came to a halt. I remember it sounded exactly like eight reindeer’s hooves.
I then heard two big steps after a moment, like a big dude in boots kind of steps. I swear I heard “ho ho ho,” but it was more of a deep chuckle, followed by a whole minute of silence. Lastly, I heard “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!” as the reindeer and sleigh took off from my roof, and the sound of sleigh bells faded into the night.
I can’t remember much after that. I was probably just excited to hear him and not surprised that he was real, so I likely lay down and went back to sleep. In the morning, I told my parents all about it, but they just laughed it off in a way.
I never brought it up again. The cookies did have bites, but I’m sure my parents did that, and the presents as well. I don’t believe Santa delivers presents or eats cookies, but I do believe he’s some kind of spirit that might visit those who believe. Some kind of spiritual manifestation of St. Nicolas, probably. Does anyone else have stories like this??”
Mary O’Reilly does!!! Happy Friday!!!
To find a Christmas Collection of Mary O’Reilly’s Ghost stories, just click here!