A present contains a monstrous secret. An uninvited guest haunts a Christmas party. A shadow slips across the floor by firelight. A festive entertainment ends in darkness and screams. Who knows what haunts the night at the dark point of the year? This collection of seasonal chillers looks beneath Christmas cheer to a world of ghosts and horrors, mixing terrifying modern fiction with classic stories by masters of the macabre. From Neil Gaiman and M. R. James to Muriel Spark and E. Nesbit, there are stories here to make the hardiest soul quail - so find a comfy chair, lock the door, ignore the cold breath on your neck and get ready to welcome in the real spirits of Christmas.

In the mind’s eye of the author a fairly large settlement exists at the North Pole. There Santa and his elves live, work and spend each year preparing the sleigh full of wonderful things for boys and girls the world around to find under their Christmas tree each year. The centerpiece is Santa’s workshop. It is fitted out with workbenches and tools for the skillful elves to use as they form their creations. Some of the elves are married and live in individual houses on the various residential streets. Most of the single elves live in dormitory rooms above the workshop. There are many other buildings similar to those you might find in any village around the world. There are grocery stores, service stations, clothing stores, a haberdashery, a bakery, a fire station and so on. Santa and Matilda Clause live not far from the workshop in a house attached to a large barn where the reindeer live. It is a large and thriving village populated with a variety of “little people,” Gnomes, Leprechauns, dwarfs, trolls, elves and so on. Across the square from Santa’s workshop is the TDW, an acronym for the Transportation Division Workshop, where all sorts of wheeled conveyances are constructed. With its large warehouse type doors it is the launching point for the numerous parades staged for the most trivial of occasions. Such units as the Dwarf Marching Band, resplendent in bright colored uniforms, and the Marinette Twirlers, also wearing vividly colorful outfits, spill out through those doors to the applause of the other villagers. It is the site of great energy, all pointing to the most important night of the year, Christmas Eve. So give your imagination free reign and you will find these stories fascinating, and entertaining.

From Rhys Bowen, the author of In Farleigh Field, comes the next Molly Murphy mystery: The Ghost of Christmas Past. Semi-retired private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is suffering from depression after a miscarriage following her adventure in San Francisco during the earthquake of 1906. She and her husband, Daniel, are invited for Christmas at a mansion on the Hudson, and they gratefully accept, expecting a peaceful and relaxing holiday season. Not long after they arrive, however, they start to feel the tension in the house’s atmosphere. Then they learn that the host couple's young daughter wandered out into the snow ten years ago and was never seen again. Molly can identify with the mother's pain at never knowing what happened to her child and wants to help, but there is so little to go on. No ransom note. No body ever found. But Molly slowly begins to suspect that the occupants of the house know more than they are letting on. Then, on Christmas Eve, there is a knock at the door and a young girl stands there. "I'm Charlotte," she says. "I've come home."

Christmas Wood is full of animals: Badger, Fidgety Fox, Owl (not Wise Old Owl, just Owl), the Rabbit family, Tiny Mouse, and Robin. It's nearly Christmas and all the animals are getting ready to celebrate Badger is looking for new friends, Tiny is making (or is that eating) gingerbread, and Rosie Rabbit just can't get ANY peace and quiet! Five festive stories from the animals in the wood all come together in a fantastically Christmassy finale in a barn with some rather special guests.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, especially in Alabama. Celebrate the spirit of the season with these tales of Christmases past from the heart of Dixie. There is the story of Helen Keller's first Christmas memories in Tuscumbia, the tale of how Birmingham native Hugh Martin penned the classic tune "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," visions of all the impressive Christmas light displays throughout the state and much more. In a collection of tales that range from the heartwarming to the heartbreaking, Alabama author Kelly Kazek culls from over two hundred years of Christmas celebrations in the state and offers up a gift that no one will want to be without come Christmas morning.

Stories About The Christmas Hawthorne, The Holy Family, The Wise Men, Shepherds, The Talking Animals, The Flight Into Egypt, And The Stories Of Saints Christopher, Nicholas And Joseph Of Arimathea.

Describes the origins of thirty-one famous Christmas songs, including "Jingle Bells," "O Holy Night," and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and provides the lyrics to each.