Haunts and holidays are for more than just Halloween. Christmas ghost stories have a tradition, too, as people gather round the fire during the darkest time of the year. You may not be familiar with them, but if you’ve ever heard Andy Williams sing “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” you’ve heard the line about “scary ghost stories.” In the US, the best known is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but in the modern era, there are a bunch of short TV shows created by the BBC that carry on the tradition.
The first bunch started in 1968 with an adaptation of scholar and author M.R. James’ Whistle and I’ll Come to You. Then came eight more spooky supernatural tales between 1971-1978, all airing in the last week or so of December:
- The Stalls of Barchester
- A Warning to the Curious
- Lost Hearts
- The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
- The Ash Tree
- The Signalman
- Stigma
- The Ice House
All but the last were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark; the last was directed by Derek Lister. The first five were based on M.R. James stories; The Signalman is adapted from a Dickens story; and the last two are original tales, by Clive Exton and John Bowen, respectively.
All ran between 30 and 50 minutes, which is why they haven’t been seen much in the U.S.; The short time makes them tricky to syndicate as movies, but too long to fit into a 30-minute block.
The series returned in 2005, with intermittent releases until 2018, as seen below:
| Title | Writer | Director | Based On | Year of Release |
| A View from a Hill | Peter Harness | Luke Watson | M.R. James story | 2005 |
| Number 13 | Justin Hopper | Pier Wilkie | M.R. James story | 2006 |
| Whistle and I’ll Come to You | Neil Cross | Andy de Emmony | M.R. James story | 2010 |
| The Tractate Middoth | Mark Gatiss | Mark Gatiss | M.R. James story | 2013 |
| The Dead Room | Mark Gatiss | Mark Gatiss | Original work | 2018 |
| Martin’s Close | Mark Gatiss | Mark Gatiss | M.R. James story | 2019 |
| The Mezzotint | Mark Gatiss | Mark Gatiss | M.R. James story | 2021 |
| Count Magnus | Mark Gatiss | Mark Gatiss | M.R. James story | 2022 |
| Lot No. 249 | Mark Gatiss | Mark Gatiss | Arthur Conan Doyle story | 2023 |
| Woman of Stone | Mark Gatiss | Mark Gatiss | Edith Nesbit story | 2024 |
You’ll notice a particular name recurring there: Mark Gatiss (co-creator of Sherlock, writer and actor in Doctor Who) has pretty much kept the tradition alive. Some of his episodes are available on Amazon’s Prime Video. If you’d like to see more of them, try Britbox, or the Internet Archive. Some of the classics were previously on Shudder. The British Film Institute (BFI) has released a Blu-ray set, but to watch, you’ll need a player capable of playing Region 2 discs.
(A number of such players are evaluated by Reddit users in this thread.)
Gatiss has put together a new one for this year, too. The Room in the Tower adapts the E.F. Benson story about a creepy recurring dream. It stars Joanna Lumley, Tobias Menzies, and Polly Walker and airs on BBC 2 on Christmas Eve.
