Although Halloween is the time of year that is popularly associated with ghost stories, it should not be forgotten that traditionally Christmas is every bit as appropriate a time for telling tales of the supernatural. Over the years, dozens of newspapers and magazines have echoed the words of the editor of Eve magazine addressing his readers in 1921: ‘Ghosts prosper at Christmas time: they like the long evenings when the fire is low and the house hushed for the night. After you have sat up late reading or talking about them they love to hear your heart beating and hammering as you steal upstairs to bed in the dark…’. It was the master of the ghost story genre, M R James, who arguably enshrined the traditional of the festive spine chiller, although others had contributed to this before him, most notably Charles Dickens and J S Le Fanu. At the…