These days, Christmas is thought of a time for joy and laughter.
Thats great - but many people don't know that Christmas time was traditionally a time for
telling scary stories.
Thats how we end up with stories like A Christmas Carol.
This tradition has faded over the years but today, were gonna bring it back, were gonna
stick a bit of spookiness into the Christmas spirit.
Make sure youre wrapped up and ready for this, its about to get cold in here.
My name is Danny Burke and this is the Top 10 Scary Christmas Stories ...
Starting off at number 10 we have the Sock Puppet[a].
This one comes from Ireland where many years ago a man owned all the land around a village
and rented it out to poor farmers for a profit.
He was kind to his family but brutal to the other villagers.
He made a fortune from his cruelty.
The villagers hatched a plan to overthrow him.
One Christmas night he threw a lavish party while the villagers were starving in the cold.
A villager arrived bearing a gift.
He said it was a present for the rich mans daughter.
The girl opened it to find a sock puppet that the villager had nitted.
He asked for some food in return.
The rich man gave him a single potato.
The girl loced the sock puppet.
She named it Charlie.
She took it to bed that night.
When the father went to check on her she was fast asleep - but he noticed that Charlie
was still on her hand - and its plastic eyes were staring straight at him.
The villagers were about to get their bloody revenge on the rich man thanks to a murderous
Sock Puppet called Charlie.
Moving on to number 9 we have Christmas Tree Decoration[b].
This a story from scary for kids about a girl called Juliette who was decorating a Christmas
tree.
Her Mum was working late and so when she finished with the tree, she sat down to watch some
TV.
It was then that she heard a scratching noise at the door.
She looked through the peephole to see a man outside.
He was a large, bearded man in a red suit with fluffy white trim.
He banged on the door loudly.
Juliette asked whos there, the man said he was Santa Claus and that he wanted to come
in because he was cold and tired and hungry.
Juliette didnt believe him.
She told him that her mother wasnt home and she wanted him to leave.
His face began to go red and twist with anger.
He knocked even harder and growled -Its Santa Clause, Juliette.
Have you laid out some milk and cookies for me, Juliette?
You know how much Santa loves his milk and cookies!- … its a creepy start to the story
and it only gets worse for Juliette from there.
All Ill say is, make sure you don't read it after you eat …
Moving on to number 8 we have The Figure[c].
This one comes from Arthur H who shared his store on cage mom . com.
He said -My mother, to whom I was very close, passed away in 1964 when I was 17 years old.
I left home that year and moved to Ontario from Nova Scotia.
In 1969 I met a girl whom I will call Karen and we got married in March of 1970.
In December of 1971 we were expecting our first child.
We were living in a small 1-1/2 bedroom bungalow.
There was a fireplace in the living room.
My wife and I loved the fireplace and we had it lit every night.
It was Christmas Eve, 1971, and we had just finished putting the gifts under the tree
and a nice fire gave off a beautiful glow.
On the tree, one string of lights, which was supposed to flash, had stopped several days
before.
It was five minutes to midnight when the fireplace suddenly just about went out, and the string
of lights started to flash -- and the other lights stopped flashing!
My wife and I were sitting on the floor and it had become very chilly in the room.
I looked over to my Lazyboy chair ... and a figure was sitting there -- my mother with
a big beautiful smile on her face!
My wife, who had never met my mother, said she could see the same thing.
This "ghost" never spoke, but just kept looking at me and my wife and smiling.
At 12 midnight, the fire in the fireplace started up again and the lights on the tree
stopped flashing and the others started flashing again.
I looked over in the chair and the ghost was gone.
No matter what I did to those Christmas lights, they never flashed again-
Next up at number 7 we have The Boy Who Killed Santa Claus[d].
This one was written by Mark Allan Gunnells.
Its about 7 year old Henry Childers.
He asked his Mum to stay up past 10 on Christmas eve but she warned him that if she didnt sleep,
Santa wouldnt come that night.
He hoped that Santa would get things right this year - last year he asked for an X Box
but got a playstation.
His Mum told him not to worry, Santa was probably all out of X boxes.
But Henry had not forgotten.
Henry had a rage inside of him.
He had been plotting all year.
He knew he was too little to fight Santa - but he also knew that Santa liked to have the
milk and cookies.
He also knew that food and drink can always be poisoned.
Finish the story to find out what happened to The Boy Who Killed Santa Claus …
Moving on to number 6 we have Bloody Axe[e].
This story actually comes from an old horror comic and the pictures youre seeing are from
that.
Its written from the perspective of an 8 year old boy.
He would lie very still under the old moth eaten quilt his mother had made for him.
He would lie wide awake and listen for sounds.
One on Christmas eve, he heard the front door closing and the clomp clomp clomp of his fathers
mud caked boots.
And then there was the sound of dripping on the stairs.
Drip.
Then his father would pass by his doorway and the light would cast his shadow on my
bedroom wall and the shadow of the bloody axe he carried in his hands.
At breakfast the next morning, he slowly asked his mother where his father went last night.
She looked at him with sad eyes but never said a word.
By the end of the story though, we learn that there is a connection with the rumours of
the nearby axe murder and his fathers return every night.
Lets just say it doesnt have a pretty ending …
Moving on to number 5 we have The Carol Singers[f].
This is a story based on The Vanishing House by Bernard Capes.
The storyteller said that when they were a boy their grandfather and father were alcoholics
who never worked - they couldn't play instruments though.
On one Christmas eve, they took took him Christmas caroling with them.
It was a dark night, snow was falling and the wind cut through them like a knife.
They came to a big mansion decorated with Christmas lights.
The grandfather knocked on the front door and they began to play some old Christmas
carols.
The door swung open and in the dim light a young woman stood holding a tray of glasses
in her hands.
She picked up a glass and handed it to the grandfather who excitedly took it.
The boy looked up to a window and saw a hideous face peering out of the shadows.
He looked back at the woman in the doorway and her face was hideous too.
They would live to regret the day they came to that mansion and the grandfather taking
the glass.
Moving on to number 4 now we have The Clown Puppet[g].
There were once 3 sisters, aged 15,12 and 7.
They asked their parents what for their Christmas gift of choice.
The oldest asked for a laptop, the middle for an ipad and the youngest for a small doll.
On Christmas Day, the oldest and middle daughters got what they asked for - they were over the
moon.
The daughter didnt receive a doll though - she got a clown puppet.
She thought it was cute and kept it.
Two days later, the youngest daughter disappeared.
The next Christmas, the oldest daughter asked for an iPad and the middle child asked for
a clown puppet.
Sure enough, two days later, she disappeared.
The next next Christmas, the last remaining daughter asked for a clown puppet in memory
of her little sisters.
She disappeared aswell.
The heartbroken parents never recovered - they eventually became so poor they had to sell
everything for money.
One day they went into the attic to look for items.
Thats when they saw, in the darkness as the very back - the clown puppet was sitting on
a throne made from lollipop sticks.
Arranged all around it were the severed heads of the 3 missing girls …
Next up at number 3 we have Grither.[h] This story from Tales from The Darkside.
It starts with a family gathered in their living room on Christmas eve.
The father was reading the newspaper and the mother was knitting a sweater.
The children, Jimbo and Steffa, were colouring in their colouring books.
They asked their father for a story.
He told them the story of the grifter - the most awful thing in the world.
He lives in a cave at the north pole.
The coldest, wettest place on Earth is where The Grither makes his home.
He sleeps in the wreck of a ship that somehow got squeezed into the mout of the save.
He doesnt mind the cold and he doesnt mind the wet, but the thing he hates most of all
is to hear someone say his name.
He has very good ears and they get bigger every time his name is spoken anywhere on
earth.
Sometimes his ears get so big, he can use them to fly- … at this point, the Steffa
said she didnt like the story, it was scaring her.
-Its too late now- the mother said -weve already mentioned his name.
The Grither is probably on his way to our house this very minute- … those words would
come to haunt them before the story ends …
Moving on to number 2 we have Belsnickel.
If youre watching this from a Germanic speaking country, you may be familiar with this story.
In that part of the world, Belsnickel is a fur clad Christmas gift bringer.
He has a long tongues and is typically very ragged and disheveled.
His clothes are dirty and ripped and he's known for beating misheard children with a
stick … he's a mythical creature that serves as an almost anti Santa like creature.
If its Santas job to deliver the presents, its the Belsnickels job to make sure they
deserve it …
And finally at number 1 we have Purple Fingernails[i].
This one comes from the Scary for Kids website and Ill read it as I found it.
There was once a little girl who had a large collection of dolls.
One Christmas, she saw a doll in the window of a department store that she absolutely
had to have.
It had long, flowing blond hair and a lovely blue dress.
But, the thing that impressed her the most about the doll, was that it had lovely, bold
purple fingernails.
When Christmas morning came, she was delighted to find the doll with the purple fingernails
lying under the Christmas tree.
She played with it all day, and when she went to sleep, she put it on the table at her bedside.
That night, the little girl was awakened by strange noises.
It was still dark outside.
She looked over for her doll, but it was nowhere to be found.
The girl, puzzled, got out of bed and walked into the hallway.
The door to her parents room was ajar, and she pushed it open softly and looked in.
Her parents appeared to be sleeping soundly, so she went back to bed.
In the morning, she saw the doll with the purple fingernails was sitting on the table
by her bed, exactly where she had left it.
She assumed that she had just been having a bad dream.
But when she went into her parents room that morning, she found them both lying dead in
a pool of blood.
There were two purple doll fingernails stabbed into their hearts.
Alright guys thats all Ive got time for Im afraid.
I hope you guys have or are going to have a lovely Christmas wherever you are!
Maybe pass a scary Christmas story on to someone you love, Im sure theyll appreciate it.
Until then, thanks as always for watching, my name is Danny Burke and Ill see you all
in the next video!