 Hello again, children. It's Santa with another edition of the Spooky Santa podcast. You'd better watch out. You'd better not cry. You'd better not pout because I'm here with some scary stories. In fact, I have three more holiday tales to raise your goosebumps. Today, I'll share a spooky Christmas story about a wealthy man, a sickly daughter, a cold winter, some angry villagers, and a mysterious Christmas present, a sock puppet. If you or your parents are a fan of Edgar Allen Poe, well, you'll really like the last story I share called the Telltale Scarf. But first, it's a scary story for Christmas about a kid whose father and grandfather go from door to door begging for money. It's based on an old horror story by Bernard Capes called The Vanishing House. My version of the story is called The Carol Singers. And remember, if you want to write a scary story of your own, you can email it to letters at spookysanta.com and I might read your story in an upcoming episode. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, pour a mug of hot cocoa, and come with Spooky Santa for another holiday chiller. My first story is called The Carol Singers. My grandfather was a drunk, and my father was a drunk, but I never touched a drop. There's a reason for that. When I was young, times were hard and I grew up poor. My grandfather and my father never did an honest day's work in their lives. Granddad wasn't good for much, but he played the clarinet like an artist. He taught my father how to play the accordion. Every Christmas, they would gather a group of their friends and they'd go door to door playing Christmas music, singing Christmas carols, and begging for money. Afterwards, they'd all go down to the pub and spend it on alcohol. Well, on Christmas Eve, they brought me with them. I was too young to play an instrument, so they handed me a triangle and told me to strike it every now and then. The night was dark, the snow was falling, and a cold December wind cut through us like a knife. We kept our heads down and trudged through the snow in the sleet. Eventually, my grandfather stopped and said, this looks like as good a place as any. We were outside a big mansion decorated with Christmas lights. My father knocked on the front door and we began playing some old Christmas carols. The door of the house swung open, and in the dim light, I saw a young woman standing there. She was holding a tray of glasses in her hands, and with a smile, she picked up a glass and held it out, inviting one of the men to drink. My grandfather rubbed his hands together with glee and took the glass. Just then, I looked up, and in the window above, I saw a face peering out of the shadows, a face that was hideous beyond words. I looked back at the woman in the doorway, and her face was also hideous. Before I could stop him, my grandfather put the glass to his lips, and he knocked it back with one big gulp. Oh, dear! said the woman in an eerie childish voice. You've drunk blood, sir. With that, the door slammed shut. My grandfather stumbled backward, and the glass fell from his hands. It shattered with a deafening crash, and he collapsed into the snow. I don't remember much after that. All I recall is waking up in the light of dawn and finding myself lying in the snow as well. The other men were also lying all around me, just waking up themselves. My father got to his feet and rubbed his head. The woman had disappeared, and the house was boarded up and abandoned. All that was left was a dark red stain in the snow where the glass of blood had broken. My grandfather lay there in the snow beside it, his face all purple and swollen. He was dead as a doornail. We hurried home that morning and called the police. They picked up my grandfather's body and brought it to the mortuary. My father told them what had happened, but they didn't believe a word of his tale. They said the house had been vacant for over a hundred years, and he must have been drinking. But after that night, my father was never the same again. He never let another drop of alcohol touch his lips, and I made sure that I did the same. My next story is called the sock puppet. Many years ago in Ireland, there was a wealthy man who lived in a very small village. He owned every single plot of land surrounding the village and rented them out to poor farmers at a tidy profit. The man lived in the biggest house in the village with his lovely wife, his two young, strong sons, and his small, sickly daughter. He was kind to all of his children, and he treated his wife like a queen. However, in business, he was ruthless and cunning. He made a lot of money by charging the villagers high rent and treated all of his tenants as if they were slaves. If any one of them was behind on their rent, even for a moment, he would throw them out of their houses without a moment's notice. The villagers hated the rich man and despised his cruel and miserly ways. He often threw lavish parties, inviting only his friends and family, and living like a king while the poor villagers had to scrimp and save just to keep their bellies full. All they could afford was a meager diet of bread and potatoes. One year, there was a potato blight, and all the crops were affected. As winter set in, the villagers were starving to death. The rich man paid no attention to the troubles of his tenants, though, and he responded by raising the rent. Then, as if that wasn't enough, he threw a Christmas party for his friends and family, where they enjoyed an enormous feast and drank sarcastic toasts to the plight of the starving tenants. That night, one villager arrived at the door bearing a gift. He said it was a Christmas present for the rich man's daughter. The girl opened the present and found a sock puppet inside. The villager said he had knitted it himself and asked if he might have some food. In return, the rich man handed the villager one single solitary potato and sent him on his way. Although it was a hideous old rag of a sock puppet, the daughter seemed to love it. She named the sock puppet Charlie and put it on her hand, showing it to everyone at the party. That night, after the party was over, my father was going to bed. He paused at his daughter's bedroom door and he looked in on her. She was fast asleep. Just as he was about to leave, something disturbed him. The sock puppet was still on her hand, and its plastic eyes seemed to be staring right at him. He ignored it and walked out, thinking he was just imagining things. That night, as the rich landlord and his wife slept in their bed chamber, they heard a knock at the door. It was their daughter. Mama, Papa, Charlie says he needs to speak with you, she said. Well, they saw their daughter walk in and blood was dripping from one of her hands, and the sock puppet was on the other, staring at them both. Charlie already spoke with Jacob and Michael, said the daughter, moving a sock puppet's mouth as if it was speaking. Now he must speak with you. For weeks, the rich man's house lay eerily silent. The villagers saw no candles in the windows and no smoke from the chimney. Eventually, they decided to check in on the family and what they discovered shocked them to their very core. In the living room sat the two brothers, both strong young men, and they had their heads twisted off and placed in their hands as if the heads were puppets. The same had happened to the parents who were found dead and decaying in their beds. The most disturbing sight of all, however, was the little girl. She was sitting in the corner of the bedroom, her severed head balanced upon one hand, smiling sweetly with her eyes wide open. On the other hand was the sock puppet. Due to her rigor mortis, her arms were sticking out and it seemed as if the two hands were speaking to each other. Just recently, a family moved into that house. They moved to the country because the family doctor said it might help their sick daughter recover from her illness. And everything was fine. Until one night, when the mother heard the daughter calling out to her. Before the mother opened the door, she heard her daughter talking. She peeked in and the girl was fast asleep. What did she need, honey? asked the father when his wife returned. The mother paused before speaking. I have no idea, she said. The poor little thing must have been talking in her sleep. Do you know where she got that awful ugly sock puppet? She was wearing it on her hand and it almost seemed like it was staring straight at me. And now my final story is called the Telltale Scarf. Here's the story. A blood red glow flickered out of the corner of my eye and stopped me cold about a foot from the front door. What on earth? I sucked in a sharp breath and I jerked my head toward the eerie light. I jolted as I met my own gaze in the ancient mirror. Mom insisted it was a near priceless antique and an impressive sample of Victorian-era craftsmanship. She'd said that so many times I hadn't memorized. But dad and I joked that she'd probably bought it at the Halloween store during the end of the season sale. It was that creepy. I leaned forward and stared deeper into the cloudy glass. It took a second but I finally figured out the mystery. The glow was a twisted reflection of our Christmas tree standing in the corner of the living room. It's red and green lights pulsed in time to a peppy Christmas carol. I let out a strained laugh which became more of a strangled scream as a thick ball of brown and orange wool blasted toward me from the hall. I caught it just before it slammed into my face. Crap-tastic. If I hadn't stopped because of that rotten mirror, I would have been long gone before Mom caught up with me. Don't forget your scarf, Isaac. She waited. Arms folded across her chest as I grudgingly wound the too long, too itchy, too homemade to be cool, but Mom was so proud I had to wear it scarf around my neck. I looped the thing around my neck at least five times, but the ends still straggled down my back, reaching my waist. Happy, I asked through a mouth full of wool, and then I stepped outside. Mom nodded with approval. Now you won't catch your death. She was all smiles, but her words echoed in my head. Catch your death. Your death. Ten minutes later, I worried she might be right. If death was looking for somebody to catch, I was pretty much the only soul crazy enough to be outside, away from the warmth and safety of custom-billed homes, hot cocoa, and last-minute gift wrapping. Plus, it didn't seem like a homemade wool scarf would offer me enough protection to evade death's grasp. Cross. Silver bullets. Holy water. Now those objects could have been real lifesavers. Dread snaked up my back, tagging along with the cold night breeze. It was happening again. I could feel him watching me. The gruesome Grim Reaper himself. It had been that way for days. A strange awareness that I was in the Grim Reaper's sights. This time, he watched me from the Samson's second-story window. Tucking my head low, I focused on the job at hand, shoveling the sidewalk that divided our house and the old Samson place. It wasn't easy, thanks to a huge snow dump earlier in the day. I was up against knee-high drifts, and now that horrible feeling of being watched. I was just being paranoid, like with the Mirror. Sure, the Mirror was ancient and could have graced Vlad the Impaler's castle wall, no questions asked, but it wasn't cursed or haunted. Nothing watched me from inside the weathered glass, and no one, especially not death himself, stood by the Samson's upstairs window, glaring down at me with such a nasty, heavy stare, I wanted to drop my shovel and bolt for the safety of my house. No, everything was Christmas card perfect in the faint glow of multicolored lights edging icicle-trimmed rooftops. Nothing was wrong or strange or even vaguely out of sorts. Even the dark gloom that surrounded the Samson place was normal, for that house anyway, because the old Samson place was empty. Abandoned, borderline condemned, not a living soul had been inside for years and years. Well, not since way before I was born. I'd grown up hearing stories about the house next door. The chatter started every October and it didn't stop until after Christmas vacation. Every town had one good haunted house or it wasn't a town worth living in. Dad said there were always stories surrounding neglected things and probably not a bit of truth to any of them. There was the story of the little girl who lived in the old place back in the 1950s. People said she fell down the staircase and broke her back. She had been sneaking downstairs to open Christmas presents before her parents woke up. Or the man who was hired by another one of the house's previous owners to string Christmas lights on the place's oak tree. He died tangled in the lights. The owners found him swinging from one huge bare branch, like the one that spanned both our properties, arching over the sidewalk. Later it was discovered that he'd been stealing money from the electric company where he worked. The house was one big wooden pile of payback. My feet slipped out from under me and I gasped, teetering like a lopsided snowman about to lose his head. I thrust the shoveling to the snow and stayed upright. That's to bend a patch of black ice. The last thing I needed was a broken bone keeping me from playing hockey. Still, that icy patch seemed to come out of nowhere and when I scanned the sidewalk, I couldn't find it again. I swallowed a lump of irrational, totally unfounded and utterly overwhelming fear. Hmm, maybe it was death coming to catch me. A gust of wind threatened to suck all the air from my lungs. Inside my mittens, my fingers shook. I gripped the shovel like I meant it. Like any second, I'd heave it into the air and fight something or someone off. Get it together. I willed myself back to work, but I didn't move an inch. I crouched there over the shovel, frozen in place while every muscle in my body screamed, Why are you still here? Run! But my dad would only tell me to go back outside and finish the job. So, I'll dig in my heels, finish the stupid shoveling as fast as I can, and then sip Grandma's world famous hot cocoa until we opened our presents in the morning. That's it. Think happy thoughts. Cocoa. Presence. Bear branches of the towering oak that obscured most of the Samson House creaked and groaned nearby in the darkness, like a body swinging on a rope. No, not a body, just the wind. It's the wind. That's all. My pulse pounded so hard it throbbed in my ears. The freeze my mom chanted to Katie when she had night terrors. It cut through my racing thoughts. Take three deep breaths, then three more, and you won't be scared of that, I'm sure. I dragged air slowly into my lungs. So what if it was something a mom told her freaked out five-year-old? It worked. It pushed back the fear and let logic back in. Ah, my muscles relaxed and my heart settled to a dull thud under my ribs. I cut deep into the snow with the blade of the shovel. Best not to think about why the old Samson place was still empty. Especially when I was the only one out on the street shoveling our sidewalk in the dark because God forbid any of our soon-to-arrive companies set foot on the white stuff. Like we could escape it. Worst winter on record and we had to host Christmas Eve dinner for my aunt, uncle, and my cousin Mason. Mason, who I bet would never be told to do chores on Christmas Eve. Mason, who always ate more than his share of grandma's Christmas buttertarts, the one she made special for me. Mason, the star player on our hockey team. Well, not anymore. Not since. A grin pulled at my lips, stretching the wool scarf wider over my face. Not wider, a tighter. Too tight. I jerked upright, dropping the shovel with a thwack against the freshly exposed concrete. I pulled the scarf, but it only tightened, like a hangman sliding the noose into place. I craned my neck, looking over my shoulder. The wind must have lifted one end of my scarf. The wool had snagged on a lower branch. A branch that looked eerily like a hand reaching out for me. The scream that erupted from my throat was muffled by the scarf. My nostrils flared, sucking in air, and I tugged at the wool. Though my mittens kept me from getting a good hold, I ripped them off, yanking at the scarf, at the smothering loops around my neck and the thick layers wrapping my mouth. Nothing worked. The scarf had a life of its own, and it wanted mine to end. Tires crunched on the snow. I was vaguely aware of a car approaching. They were almost here. Mason was almost here. Mason, who couldn't play hockey for the rest of the season because of his broken arm. Mason, whose spot on the team, went to me after the accident, making me the top scorer. Oh, the house had the wrong idea. It didn't need to call in its good friend Death, not this time. It had been an accident. Everyone agreed it wasn't my fault. I spun this way and that, using my weight against the branches hold on the scarf, but its woody fingers flexed, closed into a fist. My eyes bulged. I wasn't staring at a tree anymore. It was him, Death, and he'd caught me good. Death were a long gray cloak, the same color as the aged bark of the tree. He pulled on the scarf in his grip, and I jerked forward. Don't take me. I'm not ready. I choked out the words through the wool. He pulled again, and I fell to my knees. The scarf slackened some, and I lowered it from my lips, which were raw from the rough wool. Tears spilled down my cheeks, freezing on to my lashes. Okay, I admit it. I spat the words out between gulps of air. It was me. We were playing shitting on the pond. I left my scarf on the ice. I knew Mason was behind me, knew his skates would hit the wool, and he'd fall. I blurted out everything, rushing to tell the truth as I pleaded for a second chance at life. But I'm sorry. So sorry I did it, and I'll tell everybody. I'll confess. Isaac, a voice at my back, made me crawl around in the snow on my hands and knees until I faced its owner. Mason stood about a foot away. My aunt and uncle behind him. They had heard everything I had just confessed to the Grim Reaper. I didn't care. I was relieved. They knew the truth now. I didn't have to hold it in. Besides, I'd rather see their faces filled with shock and disappointment rather than me being dead. A quick look back proved I was safe. There was just the oak tree standing in death's place. My scarf trailed from a branch, dancing with the cool night wind. The old Samson place and death had let me go this time. Did you like the stories I told this time? If so, tell your friends and family members about the Spooky Santa podcast. That way, they can listen too. And remember, you can write your own scary story and send it to me in an email. You could email me at letters at SpookySanta.com. If you want to learn more about the stories I've told or the authors who wrote them, you can find links in this episode's show notes. Spooky Santa is a registered trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Marlar House Productions. Now, be a good little boy or girl and join me next time for more creepy tales from Spooky Santa.