Shared Storytelling: Advent Ghosts 2011

The cold has started to come down, and as winter waxes, we'll turn to our traditions, to the tinsel and lights, the turkey and pie, the wrapping and unwrapping of presents. We, too, have traditions here at ISLF, only they involve letting the chill get into our bones and creep up our spines. Every year, this blog hosts a round of flash-fiction storytelling entitled Advent Ghosts, a kind of virtual huddle around the Christmas Eve hearth, and we'd like you to join us. The details? Here they are:

1.) If you want to contribute, email ISawLightningFall [at] gmail [dot] com.
2.) Write a spooky piece of flash fiction exactly 100-words long -- no more, no less. Note that you don't have to write a ghost story, per se. Any genre is fine, but your final result should aim to raise gooseflesh on the back of the reader's neck.
3.) Post your story to your blog on December 24th and email the link to me. Hosting can be arranged for those who don't have their own blogs.

Looking for some inspiration? Read the results of our shared storytelling from 2009 and 2010. Check out the work of Nathaniel Lee, who excels at the form. Crack open a collection of M.R. James' stories or glance at Neil Gaiman's superb "Nicholas Was …" Listen to Jon Boden's poignant version of the British folk song "Mistletoe Bough" while sipping a glass of Potus Ypocras. (Hat tips and raised glasses to Chestertonian Rambler for those suggestions.) Christmas creepiness lies all around us, in sources both secular and sacred. When the earth stands hard as iron and water like a stone, who knows what creatures might forsake their ancestral haunts to roam the newly whitened world?

Well, perhaps you know. I do hope you'll share the story with us ...

(Picture: CC 2007 by Martin Gommel)