I was always puzzled by that "scary ghost stories" line as well, but someone explained it as Dickens' Christmas Carol. Not sure how scary it is, but I guess it qualifies as a ghost story.
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Dickens alone had multiple. Very common in UK historically & somewhat still; less so in US. Xmas horror films arguably in keeping. Marshmallows I'd never questioned despite not having done that myself. Just now tho found old newspaper items mentioning it being done over decades even in FL & TX.
The 1951 "Scrooge" starring Alistair Sim is the best version of that story. Marley is genuinely threatening. Scrooge shows legit terror and remorse. Hell, it's even shot like the old silent horror films. A masterpiece.
You're not the first to recommend that version. I usually watch 3-4 different versions every December. I've lost count of how many different versions I've seen in total, including the 1938 version with Reginald Owen, and of the many versions I've seen, the Alistair Sim version is my least favorite 🤷🏻♂️
Ghost stories used to be told around Christmas time, for a variety of reasons (one of which was simply because that's when you had lots of people getting together, so there was plenty of opportunities for drama for the storyteller). A Christmas Carol is one of the few that survived to the modern era
Considering that Christmas is the solstice (the darkest day of the year) it used to have celebrations that wouldn't have been that different from Halloween.
Ghost stories are a long time traditional Christmas thing in the UK, even aside from Dickens. BBC has even run “A Ghost Story For Christmas” special off and on for about 50 years.
It used to be a tradition to tell ghost stories during Christmas because it was the Victorian period, you didn't have much light indoors after it got dark and now you have a bunch of people stuck inside so what the fuck else are you gonna do, and Victorians were obsessed with ghosts
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And the part about "marshmallows for roasting." I feel like this was originally supposed to be a camping trip song.
But I'm curious: why your LEAST favorite?
I get it.