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Good morning. This week I had my annual Christmas party with an old friend from university. It consists of mince pies, a bottle of Scotch and ghost stories. Christmas is a surprisingly spooky time of year. Many people like to dig out stories by MR James and Charles Dickens - and it's intriguing that the most famous Victorian Christmas tale involves a man being tormented by the dead. Why should this be? How did the religious holiday of Christmas, which is about birth and the triumph of light, become associated with ghosts? Some say you can blame it on the industrial revolution. When people migrated from the village to the towns in the 19th century, they often found themselves living in big, creepy houses - lit by gas lamps that emitted carbon monoxide, which produced hallucinations. Another explanation is that ghost stories draw us back to the pagan roots of the winter festival, such as Saturnalia or Yule. One striking motif from folklore is the Wild Hunt, a procession of ghosts that flies across the sky, often seen at Christmas. Then there's the tradition of Klausentreiben in Bavaria. Each year, a number of unmarried men cover themselves from head-to-toe in furs, hang a cow bell around their waist and attach horns to their head. They then race through the streets whipping people with sticks - supposedly to chase the demons out of town. I think two things are going on in this bizarre scene that relate to the Christmas tradition. First, there's a sense that in midwinter something magical happens, that the veil between this world and the next is temporarily lifted. Even the 21st century, secularised Christmas is full of possibility and wonder. There is something rather miraculous about Father Christmas delivering all those presents in one night. Second, there's a warning that Christmas is a time of hope, yes, but also that it's important to get one's soul in order - to chase away the demons. That's the central message of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser, is put on trial by the ghosts and his mean-spirited life is presented as evidence. He is told that the sentence, if he does not mend his ways, will be a lonely death, unloved and unmourned. Christians believe that Jesus' birth represents the triumph of life over death, that we don't have to be afraid of dying if we've spent our life being charitable and kind. The presence of ghosts in art and literature is often a warning of the awful half-life that awaits those who fail this test of character.