/u/AncientHistory answered a question about the same line of that song here, but I hope we'll get even more information about this. I have a specialization in Victorian literature as well as weird literature, but I admit that, apart from some of the authors and titles /u/AncientHistory mentions, I have found little in my research that explicitly links Christmas with ghost stories, but I've been very curious about it for a while. For example, I'd love to hear how and when this tradition got started, how common it was, what demographics practiced it, whether it was confined to the UK/USA or had broader reach, etc. Was it a product of the general Victorian love of ghost stories or was there something specific that linked it to Christmas? Did they tell more ghost stories around Christmas than otherwise? Was it popularized by Dickens, or is A Christmas Carol just the best-remembered today?