title: Christmas Ghost Stories: a collection of winter tales
author:  Mark Onspaugh 
description: &quot;Mark Onpaugh's sixteen ghostly Christmas tales make the ideal read for filling cozy winter evenings with delectable shivers and chills. So pour your eggnog and settle in by the fire for a jolly haunted night!&quot;<br> <br>Janet Fitch, author, WHITE OLEANDER and PAINT IT BLACK<br><br>&quot;Powerful, poignant, and positively creepy just begins to describe Mark Onspaugh's Christmas Ghost Stories. Each story tops the next, building angst and excitement in the reader. You don't want the story you're reading to end, but you're anxious to get to the next! This collection is definitely one to add to your Christmas shopping list. It's certain to change your holiday ho-ho-ho into a ho-ho-WOW!&quot;<br><br>Deborah LeBlanc, best-selling author, VOICES <br><br>&quot;How do you know you're reading a Mark Onspaugh short story? I'll tell you. You'll laugh. Your skin will chill and crawl. You'll find yourself marveling that a writer can do so much so very well, all the while moving with a screenwriter's sense of pace and economy of words. But most importantly, you'll find yourself by turns surprised by love, warmed by the comforts of family, terrified by madness, and struck numb by sudden agony. Comparisons to Ray Bradbury will be, I think, inevitable...and far from out of place. Onspaugh is a gift to all lovers of the weird, and this book, a perfect sampling of his extensive range. Spend an evening this winter season with this collection and I know you'll thrill to it just as I did.&quot;<br><br>Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award-winning author, FLESH EATERS and INHERITANCE<br><br>&quot;Reading this book is like finding blood at the bottom of your glass of egg nog. You start off with something tasty and familiar and then everything goes to hell! Mark Onspaugh has taken all that is good and holy about Christmas and turned it into something terrifying -- the <br>way it should be!&quot;<br><br>JW Schnarr, award-winning journalist and author, ALICE &amp; DOROTHY<br><br>&quot;Whether you've been naughty or nice, these stories are a welcome holiday gift. Like snowflakes, they are uniquely individual adding up to a storm of pleasure that should jingle your bells!&quot;<br><br>Harvey Jacobs, author of the novels SIDE EFFECTS and AMERICAN GOLIATH<br><br>&quot;With Christmas Ghost Stories, Mark Onspaugh gives us stories full of longing, regret, and fear to while away those winter nights. There's even the occasional dash of whimsy, and the sudden hammer strike of horror waiting for when you least expect it. Onspaugh's collection runs the gamut of human emotions and will keep you enthralled until the last page is turned.&quot;<br><br>L.L. Soares, author, LIFE RAGE and ROCK'N' ROLL
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  #### Told After Supper
  
  
  Introductory
  
  How the Stories came to be told
  
  Teddy Biffles' Story--Johnson and Emily; or, the Faithful Ghost
  
  Interlude--The Doctor's Story
  
  Mr. Coombe's Story--The Haunted Mill; or, the Ruined Home
  
  Interlude
  
  My Uncle's Story--The Ghost of the Blue Chamber
  
  A Personal Explanation
  
  My Own Story
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  >
  
  
  Told After Supper
  
  
  ### Jerome K. Jerome
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### INTRODUCTORY
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It was Christmas Eve.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable
  
  
  way to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox,
  
  
  respectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox,
  
  
  respectable thing; and the habit clings to me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary
  
  
  to mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was
  
  
  Christmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas 