Well, the countdown begins....Christmas is in 4 days!!! Hope everyone is ready and has a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends! I know I will!!!  Don't forget to say a little prayer for all those serving our county and for those who have gone before us.

I wish I could send each and everyone of you a special gift that says "Thank you" for showing up and reading blog week after week.  You guys are the BEST followers EVER and I really appreciate the support!  Without you, the words are......just words!  No one hears the story. :)

Ok....I wanted to write about something to do with Christmas but at the same time kept with the theme of ghosts....hhhuummm How am I going to do that?  GOT IT!!!!

A long time ago, a tradition Christmas was started with the English during the mid 19th century.  Now, I am not saying that people haven't always celebrated Christmas but the traditional ways like the sending of Christmas cards, decorating the trees, caroling in front of homes, putting stocking up over the fireplace were all started in the Victorian era.  We STILL do all these things TODAY expect for one tradition that is all but completely forgotten.....gathering around a fire and telling ghost stories!  That's right!  A HUGE part of Christmas back in the mid 19th century would have been to wrap up in a warm blanket, gather the family with some hot coco and sit around a roaring fire and tell....GHOST STORIES!!!!

“Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories,” wrote British humorist Jerome K. Jerome as part of his introduction to an anthology of Christmas ghost stories titled “Told After Supper“ in 1891. “Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about specters.”One verse of Andy Williams’ classic Christmas song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” for instance, clearly says, “There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.”

And lets not for the Charles Dickens' "ghostly little story" called "A Christmas Carol."
I would like to recommend if you don't already have it, that you get the Walt Disney version with the  3-D charters.  The kids these days will enjoy all the animation and you will enjoy the story. :)  It's a great family film!

Now, I know that some people will say that you shouldn't talk about Ghosts and that "kind of stuff" during Christmas....that "stuff like that" should just stick with Halloween. Well, to each their own...but ghosts DON'T always have to be scary.......just ask my friend Casper the Friendly Ghost.  Below is another cute little family story that is about Casper the Friendly Ghost and he is suppose to scare someone before Christmas.  Well you know me......if I can put something "ghostly" in....I will.

Here's the thing...Christmas can be celebrated in MANY different ways....and if you want to include GHOST STORIES on Christmas like I do (of course, lol) then do so.  If you don't....then don't.  There is only ONE reason Christmas is Christmas.... and that is the day Jesus was born.  And that, HOWEVER you choose to celebrate it, is up to you and your beliefs.

In addition to being the longest night of the year, traditionally it is held to be the MOST HAUNTED night due to its association with the death of the sun and light.  It was the one night of the year when the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest.  Now, most people believe that night is Halloween because spirits can roam freely without being seen.  (because of the costumes of course)  In the old tradition on Christmas Eve, ghosts could walk the earth and finish unsettled business, as exemplified by the apparition of Marley in Charles Dickens' Christmas masterpiece.

Below is a site to a book that was written back in 1891 that is called REAL GHOST STORIES that the written states in the very beginning..." any one of tender years, of morbid excitability, or of excessively nervous temperament". It is suppose to be true ghost stories told by different individuals.  I found it to be a very interesting read when you have the time....but NOT NOW....your reading my blog!!!!
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/dec2007.html


Now, below is True Massacres that took place on Christmas.  Fair warning, these are not happy stories so before you read them....let me say again MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!  Don't forget to LOVE not HATE.  Share a smile and a kind word with someone at Christmas.....you never know when it might be the only "present" they receive.  ðŸŽ„🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅


1. Covina Massacre, 2008





On Christmas Eve night, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo put on a Santa suit and headed over to a party his former in-laws' place. Sounds appropriate for Christmas, right? Well, except for the fact that the "presents" that Pardo brought with him included a wrapped homemade flamethrowerand four 9mm semi-automatic handguns.
When he entered the home, he began shooting at random, immediately shooting an eight-year-old girl who was excitedly running to greet him (thankfully, she ended up living). After shooting many more members of his former wife's family, he used his makeshift flamethrower to douse the house in gasoline and set it on fire. In the end, nine people (including his ex-wife and former in-laws) were killed by gunshot wounds or flames.
Authorities suspect that Pardo was still furious about the divorce and having to pay alimony to his ex-wife. While he had concocted a plan to escape by plane with almost $17,000 in cash, the burns he suffered committing his horrible crimes drove him to commit suicide.

2. Ashland Tragedy, 1881





While three teenages (Robert Gibbons, Fannie Gibbons, and their friend Emma Carico) slumbered in the Gibbons home in the early hours of Christmas morning, intruders broke in and beat them to death with axes and a crowbar. The assailants then lit the house on fire, leaving charred remains with their skulls viscously cracked open.
A local bricklayer named George Ellis ultimately told police that he commited the crime along with coworkers William Neal and Ellis Craft. Because the public was so enraged by the murders, the trio needed to be removed from Catlettsburg jail to avoid a lynch mob. Following the trial, Neal and Craft were sentenced to death by hanging, and Ellis was given a life term. The townfolk were furious with this verdict, however, and removed Ellis from his jail that very night and lynched him.

3. Dallas Christmas Massacre, 2011





In another horrendous example of a murderer taking advantage of Santa's jolly effect on people, Aziz Yazdanpanah wore the iconic red and white suit to go on a murderous rampage. Like Pardo, he was experiencing financial troubles, and his rage was directed toward his estranged wife and family.
Yasdanpanah arrived at his wife's apartment where his family had just finished unwrapping gifts. He opened fire on his wife, daughter, son, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and niece, killing them all in the living room and kitchen. When the police found the carnage, Yasdanpanah had already turned the gun on himself.

4. The Los Feliz Murder Mansion, 1959





According to his neighbors, Dr. Harold Perelson was a respectable family man residing in a nice area of Los Angeles. That is until he murdered his wife in cold blood and then pursued his oldest daughter. After enjoying a calm dinner and putting his two younger to bed, Dr. Perelson grabbed a hammer from the garage. He returned to his bedroom and, with excruciating force, pummeled his wife's head. When Judye, his eldest daughter, saw the grisly sight, her father attempted the same attack on her, but she was only wounded and stunned. She escaped to the neighbors who called the police, and Dr. Perelson drank a bottle of acid in the living room, leaving all his children thankfully alive.
His motive for the murders is still a mystery.
Though the actual murder occurred on December 6th, the mansion was all decked out for the upcoming holiday. The freakiest part of all is that the Christmas Tree and the still-wrapped presents remain from the original owners remain untouched, and the house still sits almost exactly how it did on that fateful day in 1959. Though there is a "No Trespassing" sign, the spot has become a destination for visitors interested in the macabre.

5. Charlie Lawson Murders, 1929





Just before Christmas in 1929, Charlie Lawson took his large family (wife Fannie and their children: Marie, 17; Arthur, 16; Carrie, 12; Maybell, 7; James, 4; Raymond, 2; and Mary Lou, 4 months) on an uncommonly lavish trip to buy new outfits and take a family portrait. The new garments would turn out to be burial clothes.
On Christmas Day, Lawson began slaughtering his family with a shotgun. He shot Carrie and Maybell first, and then pursued his wife. Hearing the shots, the little boys tried to hide, while Marie screamed. He found and killed them all, even the infant Mary Lou. The only survivor was his eldest son Arthur, who returned to the farm with a police officer to find that his father had committed suicide.
Perhaps the most insidious element of this story is the potential motive. In their book White Christmas, Bloody Christmas, M. Bruce Jones and Trudy J. Smith argue that based on the testimony of people who knew the Lawsons intimately, Charlie and his eldest daughter Marie had likely been having an incestuous affair. A friend of Marie's even claimed that Marie told her she was pregnant with Charlie's baby, and both Charlie and his wife knew about it. The theory goes that Lawson was either racked with guilt or so unwilling to father a child with his daughter that he snapped and slaughtered the whole family. Either way, it's easily the most heinous Christmas murder in the country's history.