I have been listening to Christmas songs on repeat lately, and the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” has been appearing frequently in my headphones. When I decided to listen to them in the car with my friends the other day, this song of course came on again. Someone pointed out a line I have never payed attention to in my previous mindless sing-alongs. The line occurs in the verse,
There’ll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There’ll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of the
Christmases long, long ago
The question my friend asked after hearing this verse was, “Why do they bring up ghost stories? I don’t associate ghost stories with Christmas time.” This made me think of my fascination with the supernatural elements of Dickens’s Christmas stories. The rest of this song portrays the lifestyle Dickens created in his Christmas stories, it makes sense that the song also mentions ghost stories. I do not know if Andy Williams was thinking of A Christmas Carol when he wrote this song, but it is interesting to see that some of Dickens’s Christmas traditions are still around whereas these “scary ghost stories” have just become a confusing lost reference.