Christma(dnes)s VII

wintergraveyard

It may have taken me longer than usual to assemble this year’s selection of frightfully festive fun, but I think the sheer volume of material I dug up was worth it. After all, why should I just focus on the Phantasm ornament or the “Krampus in the Corner” when there’s so much more out there? I’m really excited about this this first one. Remember the restored Santa Claus Conquers The Martians pressbook article from a few years back? Well, the full Santa Claus Conquers The Martians pressbook is now online and has oddities like a coloring sheet and guidelines for the “Martian Santa Soda!”

If you crave recipes for creepy Christmas fare, fear not! Home For Halloween has recipes for “Halloween Hot Cocoa,” “Night Owl’s Favorite Gingerbread” and “Bloody Winter Fudge.” I also found recipes for “Grinch Kabobs,” Krampus-approved “Coal Cookies” and the amazing “Jack Skellington Cheese Ball.” Speaking of food, remember Haunted Hotsauce? Now they’re called “Halloween Hotsauce” and have some “Krampus Hot Sauce” that’s perfect for kicking up savory holiday meals.

But that’s not the only thing I can vaguely connect to that particular pressbook! How about some free music? There’s “Robotic Christmas Tree” by the Amoeba People, “Christmas in Space” by Loop Line and “Is it Christmas on Venus?” by the Blue Giant Zeta Puppies.

Sam Haynes added some new tracks to The Gift of Christmas Fear and he’s not the only musician offering full albums of spooky and disturbing holiday hits! The Havana Snowbirds have A Very Creepy Christmas, Pumpkin Buzzard is offering Happy Holidays and Insect Posse takes us Home For The Holidays. Although you can download Venus de Vilo’s “Santa’s Slay,” “Mistletoetag” and “The Nightmare Before Christmassacre” for free on SoundCloud, buying them as an album on Bandcamp will let you snag some other ghastly gifts.

While we’re on the subject of downloading individual tracks: YYAAMM has “Grüße an Krampus!!” (it means “Greetings to Krampus!!”), Kieran Strange wishes us a “Merry Undead Christmas,” Vagabondage is having a “Zombie Xmas,” which is not to be confused with David Watson’s “Zombie Christmas,” Mike Pritchard is annoyed how “Christmas Threw Up on Halloween,” Kevin Schatz pleads “Santa Save Halloween,” and Spiral pays tribute to a specific kind of greeting card called “KrampusKarten.” Similarly, Angellis Taliuu offers “We Wish You A Zombie Christmas,” Cthulhu Martini tells the tale of “Silent Night Deadly Night,” Tom Smith lightens the mood with “A Pirate Christmas,” World of Fright notes how “It’s Bloody Christmas,” Silver Louzy pits “Xmas Vs. Halloween,” the Dollyrots belt out “I Saw Mommy Biting Santa Claus” while Josef Nadek is sharing both “H.P. Lovecraft’s Yule Horror” and “A Yule-rite, older than man and fated to survive him.” UPDATE: It turns out the free download of David Watson’s “Zombie Christmas” was a limited time offer and is sadly now unavailable.

But what about those who desire some spoken word material? Will Hessler’s hilariously profane “Christmas Begins At Target 8​:​30 Halloween Night” might be more satisfying than music. The Wicked Library has several Christmas specials featuring tales of terror available for download. If you prefer streaming stories, Mike Arnzen’s short “Little Stocking Stuffers” is contrasted nicely by Astro Al’s lengthy “Merry Black Mass” and “A Victorian Christmas Ghost Story.”

Since reading ghost stories is a Christmas tradition in England, you can curl up with William Meikle’s “The Yule Log,” followed by E. F. Benson’s “Between the Lights” “The Other Bed” also has a mild Christmas connection.

While we’re on Google Books, let’s look at the lyrics to “Pumpkin Bells,” learn how to make crêpe paper moss that’s perfect for a fake swamp or Christmas party (seriously) and behold the insanity of “Nutcracker Kills The Squirrel.”

Now comes the time for my annual trip to Amazon. While there I came across a horror-centric audio version of A Christmas Carol and a Christmas sound effects album which blatantly reuses altered tracks from a scary sounds album. You can listen for yourself if you don’t believe me! There’s also books like Santa’s Claws, Happy Halloween, Li’L Santa, The Fright Before Christmas, The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year, Haunted Christmas: Yuletide Ghosts and Other Spooky Holiday Happenings and The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas: Roots and Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil. The amount of Krampus merchandise has exploded over the last few years. There’s masks, leggings, figurines, candy canes, drinking glasses and even a Krampus tree topper!

Don’t forget to support small businesses! Monolith Graphics has some beautiful new Christmas cards and Dead Rose Symphony has a new release called Christmas Mourning. Moving on to the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s online store, we have a Cthulhu tree topper, Cthulhu ornament, a holiday gift bag, Christmas audio drama and various combo deals featuring other cool Christmas stuff.

Speaking of Lovecraft, why trim a tree when you can decorate a giant tentacle? You can even use some papercraft shrunken heads as ornaments. Don’t fret about making Christmas too scary for Santa, as that right jolly old elf has a section of his blog devoted to Halloween!

Our last leg of this year’s journey takes us to the Island of Misfit Links. Platypus Comix tells the tale of a Halloween special which was accidentally shown as a Christmas special, Flying Frog Productions has a free downloadable Krampus card for use with the board game A Touch of Evil and MechaGodzilla Jr. spends Christmas on Monster Island. Finally comes both the naughty and nice episodes of our podcast’s 2015 holiday celebration. Enjoy!

Gravedigger’s Local 16 is not to be held responsible for the content on or anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of visiting any links on the above sites, downloading from them or constructing a project that’s detailed on them. This also applies to any suggestions made here. Attempt at your own discretion.

1 ping

  1. […] illustrating this article is the work of Jessie Tarbox Beals, who also created the image used in last year’s installment of “Christma(dnes)s.” It was fascinating to read up on her career in photography. I had no idea she was the very first […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Bad Behavior has blocked 5864 access attempts in the last 7 days.