My two siblings and I always spent part of Christmas Eve at Aunt Amy’s… the most mystical woman I have ever known.

Aunt Amy’s wonderful white washed cottage, sat beside a brook. On the riverbank, a majestic weeping willow bowed its branches over her very special bench. This had been made as a memorial to her beautiful retriever, Lion King.

We always approached the cottage with the usual feelings of excitement and trepidation. As we knocked on Aunt Amy’s door, she was hardly ever there to greet us… the door just creaked open into a long, dark hallway, where the sound of ticking could be heard from a tall, solemn clock on the wall. Aunt Amy did her very best to make us feel like we were in a horror movie and it worked…

I remember the smell… cinnamon! Aunt Amy would always light the joss sticks just before we arrived.

We walked with feelings of nervous splendor into the hallway and then slowly we pushed the lounge door open. There she would be… sat on the Jacobean sofa in the arched recess at the side of the glowing fireplace… waiting and ready.

Above her, hung an old portrait painting, surrounded with a large gilt frame. The small oil print was of my dear old grandfather. His kind brown eyes and his attire, in an old fashioned brown suit was so comforting somehow in this spooky old house.

Aunt Amy would leave her seat and saunter across the wooden floor to greet us. She then ran her perfectly manicured finger over our cheeks and whispered, ‘come now children, I have a story to tell.’
    
Once my two siblings and I were seated around her open fireplace and below her feet, she would lick her bright red lips in anticipation of the ‘very secret’ supernatural tale she had in store for us.

I remember her light brown eyes would shine like andalucite gems from the glare of the open fireplace… then they would rest heavily on each of ours in turn.   

Her final gesture before her story began, was to shake her wild, auburn hair in readiness… making sure her many bangles jingled, like the sound of sleigh bells ringing in a land of snow and mystery.

Then her secret tales, which only my two siblings and I were allowed to share, began…

During her fable, she often reached for a piece of kindling to place on the fire, whilst frightening us half to death.

Then the flames would come alive… dancing like tiny frenzied demons. Aunt Amy’s eyes would light up at the sight… knowing it only brought more tantalization with her tale.

I remember the fear, anticipation and the knowing that she should not be telling us these stories…’everyone should share a great ghost story,’ she used to say… she was amazing and we loved her to bits for it!

Of course, these stories must remain secret, between my siblings and I… and of course Aunt Amy, who sadly passed away in 2001.

She will never be forgotten though; if there is one thing I will always remember at Christmas time… my magical Aunt and her Christmas ghost stories.

Written by Jackie Stevens, Copyright 2009 ChristmasChimney.com