When it comes to the holiday season, the general public sees it solely as a wholesome, feel good time of the year.  Christmas lights flood the streets of various households, turning them into beautifully lit nostalgia trips to our childhoods.  Almost everyone, even those who celebrate a different holiday other than Christmas, can attest to setting up a classical Christmas tree inside of their houses, scenting the air with sweetening maple and pine.  Many holiday treats are intended to bring the solid feeling of warmth inside the body, such as the iconic wintery hot chocolate.  If these treats are not warm, they are as sweet as sugary candy canes or fruity sugar plums.  People use the holidays as a strong excuse to bring the family together for a gathering of cheer that not even the iconic Thanksgiving can apparently replicate.  Everything connected to the holiday season is seen as entirely wholesome with the scares department far away in the distance.

  With this ideology in mind, it would seem that creating any type of horror medium related to the holiday season is impossible.  After all, the wholesomeness of the holiday season seems too positive of a light to corrupt even in the slightest.  Sure, people have made stories with hints of horror such as Charles Dickens's novella A Christmas Carol, but those elements are created entirely to establish the overall wholesome moral of the story.  The Ghost of Christmas Future for example is introduced in such a sinister way in the plot only to depict a future in which Ebenezer Scrooge fails to develop positively as a character, a mere warning to him and the audience of the despair that comes with not being jolly during the holidays.  Other than hints of terror in holiday stories, it would seem the horror medium has no place during this seemingly unbreakably wholesome time of year.

  That is where most people are wrong.  It turns out that horror stories connected to the holiday season are not only possible, but potentially great fodder for the genre.  After all, anything can be made scary if you put enough imagination into it.  Why do you think as children, a lot of people fear concepts such as the monster under the bed or shadowy creatures of the night?  Horror is an imaginative genre that with the right hand can be translated to fit any part of the year.  Having a story take place during the holiday season is completely possible if thinking in this context.

  The most well known example of blending horror into the holiday season is the iconic stop motion film The Nightmare Before Christmas.  In that animated film, the creators manage to blend elements of both Halloween and Christmas seamlessly.  You get the iconic scary elements of Halloween from the start, with the Halloweentown native Jack Skellington serving as the main protagonist.  As the film goes on, elements of Christmas are slowly woven in after the character accidentally enters a portal into a holiday themed paradise.  Both holidays are treated with equal respect, giving the movie a charm that is unique from any other movie before it.  In fact the blend is done so well that many people to this day have arguments as to whether or not the film is considered a Christmas film or a Halloween film.  The Nightmare Before Christmas is the prime proof out there that horror narratives can be created to fit the usually wholesome holiday season.

  Now that there is proof that the holidays can be fodder for some great horror stories with the right effort, how can someone create a strong scary narrative with this setting?  While imagination is a strong spice for creating the perfect plot recipe towards a great horror story taking place during the holiday season, relatable aspects are another ingredient that must be considered to fully realize the desired product.  When crafting this horror story, consider thinking about the more negative elements of the holiday season.

  Many people consider the Black Friday rush to be an extremely toxic aspect of the holiday season that many people cringe at or fear entirely due to the dangerous stampede of people entering a single facility at once.  There is then the high costs gifts usually have, a stress trigger for the older crowd, especially parents with children.  Bringing the family together for the iconic Christmas feast is additionally extremely stressful, especially with the differing mindsets relatives tend to have at any family gathering.  That is not even mentioning Krampus, who is the scary anti-Santa Claus counterpart that many parts of the world honor for the holidays.  There is a lot of material someone could easily take inspiration from in order to create a truly fascinating holiday-themed horror story.

  So for those who believe the holiday season is untouchable with the horror genre, think again.  Anything can be made scary with equal imagination and equal relatable aspects.  If The Nightmare Before Christmas can exist as an icon of popular culture, why can't other horror-related stories taking place during the holiday season?  Nothing is truly untouchable for the horror genre.  Just make sure to have the right idea in mind before crafting the story you have in mind.