Tinsel and Terror: Unwrapping 25 Christmas Horror Books
If you believe what you see and hear, this time of year is full of joy, merriment, and goodwill to all.
But horror fans know better. Horror fans know there’s a darker side to the Yuletide season. Horror fans know that the red on Santa’s suit may not be just the color of the fabric.
Horror authors have a special way of turning those twinkling lights, that tinsel, that mistletoe, those sugar plums, into something… else.
Candy cane curses. Sinister snowstorms. Grudge-filled snowmen. Fireplaces that are just a bit too hot. Trees sick of being exploited. Strange gifts. And why is Santa carrying that axe?
Buckle up for a tumultuous ride through the dark side of the holidays and into the land of dread, where the chill may not be coming from the wind.
Join us in unwrapping a horror literary Christmas advent calendar full of twisted takes on holiday traditions.
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Table of Contents
1. Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror
Edited by Ellen Datlow
Supernatural Christmas horror
This anthology invites you to huddle around the fire and revel in the unholy, the dangerous, the horrific aspects of a time when families and friends come together … for better and for worse.
From the eerie Austrian Schnabelperchten to the skeletal Welsh Mari Lwyd, by way of ravenous golems, uncanny neighbors, and unwelcome visitors, Christmas and Other Horrors captures the heart and horror of the festive season.
Because the weather outside is frightful, but the fire inside is hungry…
2. Snow
by Ronald Malfi
Supernatural Christmas horror
Only two hours into the treacherous trip west, Todd swerves to avoid a man in the middle of the highway. The stranger claims his daughter is lost somewhere out in the snow. Though his odd demeanor and ripped clothes make Todd and his group uneasy, they agree to take the man to the nearest town, if the now-damaged car can make it.
What awaits them at the next exit, however, is nothing they could have imagined. Around an empty town square, fires burn, cars are abandoned, storefronts are smashed. And there is no one to be seen … for now.
But soon the shadows lurking on the edges of their vision will step into the light, and Todd and his fellow travelers will find themselves facing a sharp-scythed evil shaped from the snow, tearing its way into human form and taking the neighborhood by storm.
3. Candy Cain Kills
by Brian McAuley
Slasher Christmas horror
But after learning that their holiday getaway was the site of a horrific crime, this family on the rocks will have to fight for their lives against a legendary killer…
…because Candy Cain is slashing through the snow with a very long naughty list.
Oh what fun it is to die.
4. You Better Watch Out
by Matt Forgit
Serial killer Christmas horror
Meanwhile, the town of Tinselvania is under attack by a bloodthirsty, maniacal serial killer dressed as a reindeer. Why are they here? What do they want? Can Mary and Bright balance a blossoming romance and stop a deranged murderer before it’s too late?
5. Secret Santa
by Andrew Shaffer
Christmas comedy horror
As soon as she arrives, Lussi finds herself the target of her co-workers’ mean-spirited pranks. The hazing reaches its peak during the company’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, when Lussi receives a demonic-looking object that she recognizes but doesn’t understand.
Suddenly, her coworkers begin falling victim to a series of horrific accidents akin to a George Romero movie, and Lussi suspects that her gift is involved. With the help of her former author, the flamboyant Fabien Nightingale, Lussi must track down her anonymous Secret Santa and figure out the true meaning of the cursed object in her possession before it destroys the company and her soul.
6. Hark! The Herald Angels Scream
edited by Christopher Golden
Christmas horror anthology
That there is darkness at the heart of the Yuletide season should not surprise. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. Marley untying the bandage that holds his jaws together. The hideous children – Want and Ignorance – beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The heavy ledgers Marley drags by his chains. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts.
7. The Gingerbread Men
by Joanna Corrance
Psychological Christmas horror
By day, the men carry out their domestic chores in the hotel, cut off from the rest of the world by the snow. At night, they tell horror stories beside the fire, hoping to entertain the woman they serve. They do not ask why there are no guests, why it always snows, why they can’t go home.
Seeds of doubt begin to plague Eric and, as he delves deeper into the lives of the men at the hotel, secrets are uncovered.
8. The Visitor
by Sergio Gomez
Supernatural Christmas horror novella
As the night progresses, the snowfall shows no signs of relenting, ice begins to build up on the roads, and the temperature seems to be dropping by the hour.
But the worst has nothing to do with the weather, and everything to do with the sixth visitor coming to the diner.
The jolliest time of the year quickly turns bloody as the diners find themselves fighting for their lives. This Christmas won’t just be white. It’ll be red, too.
9. Red Christmas
by Alice B. Sullivan
Zombie Christmas horror short
In this story of grief and denial, Preston races against the clock through a pitch-black mall riddled with undead in hopes of collecting the final decoration needed to finish his tribute: a star.
But what lurks in the dark aren’t the only monsters Preston needs to face in order to survive.
10. Things on the Shelf
by H.H Duke
Three Christmas horror short stories
Seven-year-old Bianca can’t understand why Santa brings her friends everything they ask for every Christmas, but brings her cheap toys from the dollar store. When she discovers an elf doll at one of the houses her mother cleans for a living, she begs it to intervene with Santa on her behalf. But when the elf starts to move around the house on its own, she may get more than she asked for this Christmas.
It’s gearing up to be a lonely Christmas for Jake Kensington. He may be the richest man in town, but his wife is dead and his son thinks he’s crazy. He won’t even get to see his granddaughter on Christmas. When he wins a strange doll at an auction, it lifts his spirits, until items in his house start to move when no one is home and strange noises echo the halls at night.
11. My Darling Girl
by Jennifer McMahon
Psychological Christmas horror
Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories. Still, she eventually agrees to take in Mavis, hoping that she and her mother could finally heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of.
But when mysterious and otherworldly things start happening upon Mavis’s arrival, Alison begins to suspect her mother is not quite who she seems. And as the holiday festivities turn into a nightmare, she must confront just how far she is willing to go to protect her family.
12. Season’s Creepings
by Ronald Kelly
Christmas horror collection
But, beneath the festive wrapping paper and the gleam and glitter of the lights and tinsel, things less jubilant may lie in wait. The holiday season can bring love, peace, and benevolence… but it may also spawn a darkness lurking amid the shadowy boughs of the Christmas tree, ornaments that should have never seen the light of day, let along hung on festive branches, and bones that jingle and dance, in search of Santa’s crimson suit… and the flesh that resides within.
13. Snowball
by Andre Gonzalez
Slasher Christmas horror
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, incidents occur around the house, some innocent, some not so innocent.
As the days become less jolly, Brandon suspects an evil spirit is haunting their home.
14. The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories
published by Valancourt Books
Christmas ghost horror
Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten.
Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume.
15. Winterwood
by JG Faherty
Supernatural Christmas horror novella
But now the Yule Lads have kidnapped Anders’s grandsons, and he has to rescue them before they’re lost forever. Anders and his daughter must cross the divide between worlds and enter Winterwood, where evil holds sway and even the reindeer have a taste for human flesh.
By the time the sun rises, they’ll learn the awful truth about Winterwood: there is no escape without sacrifice.
16. The Sleigh
by Max Hawthorne
Christmas cannibal serial killer horror
Every December for the past decade, a cult of serial killers the press calls the Christmas Cannibals has chewed the Big Apple to its core. Creeping in under cover of darkness, they bypass the finest security systems and slaughter entire families, leaving wreckage and half-eaten corpses in their wake.
But as Dunbar and Alvilda’s investigation leads them from one horrifying crime scene to another, they begin to realize there is something dark and deadly lurking in the shadows. It is an ancient evil whose roots are wrapped around the most iconic Christmas figure of all.
And for those who meet its fiery gaze, the legend of Santa Claus will never be the same.
17. The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights
published by Sphere
Christmas horror anthology
Taking you from a haunted Tuscan villa to a remote Scottish island with a dark secret, these vibrant haunted stories are your ultimate companion for frosty nights.
18. Where the Dead Go to Die
by Aaron Dries and Mark Allan Gunnells
Zombie Christmas horror
Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred.
Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse.
This emotional, political novel comes from two of horror’s freshest voices, and puts a new spin on an eternal topic: the undead. In the spirit of George A Romero meets Jack Ketchum, Where the Dead Go to Die it is an unforgettable epilogue to the zombie genre, one that will leave you shaken and questioning right from wrong…even when it’s the only right left.
It won’t be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood.
19. 12 Deaths of Christmas
by Paul Sating
Christmas horror collection
Twelve wicked tales of holiday horror to fill the long, dark nights of the season … with dread. ‘Tis the season … to die.
20. Christmas Evil
by Mark L’Estrange
Christmas horror collection
A father who will go to any lengths to feed his hungry children. An unsuspecting woman who inherits a house with a deadly secret. A murderous widow who shares a train carriage with Jack the Ripper. Two burglars who bite off more than they can chew during a late-night raid.
These and many more bedtime stories come hideously to life in Mark L’Estrange’s nineteen tales of terror, each set on the most festive night of the year. Will anyone survive until Christmas morning?
21. Everything is Temporary
by Jon Cohn
Psychological Christmas horror
The tension keeps rising as Tom’s actions culminate in a shocking attempt on the life of an off-season mall Santa Claus. What’s truly mysterious is Tom’s year-round hatred for Christmas, a puzzle that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
In the midst of the turmoil, Tom clings to a forgotten book from his past. A disturbing story he wrote when he was younger. Its pages reveal a traumatic tale that’s almost unbelievable, with talking Christmas trees, an army of living toys, and a sinister figure posing as Mrs. Claus.
22. Wight Christmas
by various
Christmas horror anthology
Wight Christmas subverts Christmas tropes, spinning new traditions around murder and monsters, cannibalism and the occult, hostile takeovers and indentured servitude, and yes, even wights.
23. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
by Dorian J. Sinnott
Supernatural horror
But with a tight deadline hanging over their heads, stress is a frequent visitor. As are the two cats that mysteriously appear on his doorstep. But there’s something sinister hiding behind their sweet and furry demeanor. And the town of Oakridge comes to know it well.
When the Christmas lights shine and the snow falls heavy, something awakens. Something dark and ancient. Cold. And with it, unspeakable terrors are born. From legends of old black trains to holiday satyrs and straw goats of yore, the winter wind lurks in the deepest of shadows. Hungry for flesh. Waiting for the darkness to return.
The spirit of the season is far more than Harold Trapp bargained for.
24. Christmas Eve on Haunted Hill
by Bryan Smith
Supernatural horror
Luke Herzinger, his youngest son, was the sole survivor of the infamous Herzinger Family Massacre.
Now, after a decade away, a despondent and suicidal Luke has come home to face his past and battle the evil that still resides in the old family home on Haunted Hill.
25. Krampus: The Yule Lord
by Brom
Twisted fairytale Christmas horror
Published: 4 December 2023
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