(This month’s question) Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What’s your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

For the record let me note that I am a “Christmas” person. And I suspect that my choice of ghost stories probably reflects that. Too much pain around the holidays for me, and for the past twenty some-odd years. I’m currently seeing decorations in the stores, and I just want to push them off the shelves and say LET THE PUMPKINS HAVE SOME TIME. There’s already Halloween stuff on clearance for pete’s sake. But, in the case of this months’ prompt, I don’t do horror. Full stop. I was one of the kids that the Gremlins movie required a need for a PG-13 rating. That “family Christmas film” had me scared to death, especially for some reason of sleeping on second floors, so I don’t do ghost stories or horror or spooky things. I went through a witch phase in my late teens, early twenties, so I have a lot of fun witch statues. Black kitties are okay because they’re kitties. I talk to the spiders, apologize when I run into their webs, but please don’t scare me. I think I’ve had enough trauma in my life, thank you very much, and I’m trying to heal.

That being said, the ghost movie that is my favorite, the one which sticks in my memory is A Christmas Carol. I remember reading the Charles Dickens book for school, and perhaps, because I now realize I was looking to find some story of redemption and maybe healing, I became rather enthralled with it and read it every year. I prefer the older versions of the movies, especially, I think, the 1938 release.

It has ghosts in it, so it counts for this prompt, I hope.

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” – A Christmas Carol

There are layers of socio-economic discussions to be had here, from why Dickens wrote these characters to their application in our modern world. And perhaps, if we’re looking at spooky, they may be the spookiest ghosts of them all, because they’re still among us.