Image by Midjourney.com
Christmas can be a recipe for disaster: From the problematic conversations with your politically correct relatives, to the digestively challenging amounts of Baileys, to the overall insane amount of pressure there is to have the most perfect day ever. While it may feel soul-destroying to have “ruined Christmas”, it (usually) makes a good story. Here are a few shares:
Anybody who has ever traveled to Pittsburgh would be remiss if they didn’t see the 42-story skyscraper called the Cathedral of Learning, which is the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh Oakland Campus. This gothic revival-style building offers more than some of the many campus classrooms but the Nationality Rooms offer a glimpse into life and culture around the world.
The Nationality Rooms include 31 rooms decorated reminiscent of countries from the Far East including Korea, China, and the Philippines, across Asia including India, Armenia, and Israel, into Africa, through many countries of Europe. Many of these are working classrooms. But we didn’t have to travel far because it was the Early American Room that stopped us dead in our tracks.
Prior to the pandemic, every December the university would decorate each of the rooms in a style that would be consistent with the way those countries celebrate the holiday season in their traditional manner. For example, the African Room would be decorated for Kwanzaa, the Israel room for Hanukkah, and the others for Christmas as they celebrate.
The Early American Room is detailed with 1600’s furnishings. A huge stone fireplace dominates the room, complete with heavy iron kettles, a shovel, utensils, and a gridiron. This room is the only one with two levels. The upstairs is accessed through a hidden passage. A secret latch next to the fireplace must be released, which opens a panel in the wall and reveals stairs going upward. The upstairs is completely fitted out as an early American bedroom. It was before Christmas but late in the season when the room was still open for visitors. Because the tours are self-guided, at that moment we were the only ones in the room. All of a sudden we heard a loud CRASH, similar to someone striking a gong. I jumped and my immediate thought was, “Oh My God! My autistic son must have whacked something! Thank God no one else was in the room!” The sound must have resonated down the hall because in walked one of the staff. When she asked us what happened I started to say that my autistic son must have hit one of the iron kettles. As I glanced at the doorway I noticed that my son wasn’t even in the room. He and my husband were probably 20 feet down the hallway and nowhere close to the gridiron or the kettles. Completely perplexed, I turned to her and said I had no idea what just happened. Without even hesitating, the woman turned and addressed an empty room, saying, “Martha, these people mean you no harm. They just want to see what an early American room would look like at Christmas.” Because none of us was named Martha we had no idea to whom she was talking. I was just relieved we didn’t cause the commotion.
When we got home that evening we researched the Early American Room and learned exactly who Martha was. Apparently, the strange occurrences in that room began almost 30 years earlier. The director of the Nationality Rooms was E. Maxine Bruhns, serving since 1965. She donated quite a few of her personal belongings to the university and with them came the resident ghost. One day Mrs. Bruhns decided to go into the Early American Room. She felt around the fireplace until she located the secret latch. When she pulled it, the secret panel swung open and she ascended the stairs to the bedroom. In the bedroom, there is an antique 4-poster rope bed with a pretty red and green hand-stitched quilt. To the right of the bed is a small cradle. Mrs. Bruhns believes that one of the entities that inhabit this space is that of her grandmother Martha Jane Poe, who began to haunt the space when Bruhns donated her grandmother’s items to decorate the space. Witnesses have seen the cradle begin rocking on its own. With regards to the bed, the quilt that covers it is an 1878 wedding quilt that used to adorn the bed of Waitman Worthington McDaniels and Martha Poe in the early years of their marriage.
One day while tidying up the bedroom, custodian John Carter, noticed that the quilt was rumpled. He smoothed it out and turned to go only to hear a whoosh sound behind him. He turned around and saw that the quilt had been pulled down and the pillow had an imprint of a head on it. In the mid-90s, the entire tour group reported smelling fresh bread baking in the fireplace which hasn’t been used since the 1940s. Others have reported suddenly seeing candles light on their own. One woman even reported seeing a woman with her hair pulled back while wearing an apron.
With all these paranormal stories surrounding this room, several years ago Mrs. Bruhns decided to spend the night in a sleeping bag at the foot of the bed. Upon settling in for the night, she called out “I’m here, Grandma. I’m all alone now if you want to contact me.” Just as she was drifting off to sleep, Bruhns heard the swish of the material above her two times. Then, something crashed onto the floor near her head. Finally, she mustered the courage to turn on her flashlight. She found that the quilt had been pulled back and a water bottle that she placed in her overnight bag had somehow fallen to the floor. Mrs. Bruhns called out ‘Grandma, you can have this damn room.” She quickly packed up and went home.
The University of Pittsburgh no longer allows visitors to enter the Early American Room. There is a clear doorway where you can peer into the room. Is this because of Martha? I’m guessing yes. – Mary Ann Besser – https://www.quora.com/Can-you-share-a-creepy-Christmas-story
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I got one that is pretty creepy happened about 2ish years ago when I was experiencing full on demonic things. God saved me from depression and after it I realized I could also see things that I couldn’t explain and for 2 years I couldn’t see em properly it was like shadows moving and things like id see what I thought was a being in the corner of my eye and then when I look nothing there type thing but one day about 2 years after God saving me I started to see things a lot clearer it happened after I had this weird vision thing of this symbol:
777 in the shape of a pyramid and after this vision I had just moved into my own unit at the time 2 weeks into this new unit shit got hectic I was seeing and experiencing things that were absolutely unbelievable demons n black dark angel things it was like I was under demonic attack cause I could see but one night when it finally got to sleep I was never scared but the hardest thing while that is happening is sleeping because it’s like they would wait till i fall asleep type thing not sure why but I didn’t want to sleep and be defenseless one night I woke up cause I had this feeling when I was asleep wake up something is watching you and I woke up in the dark obviously and had this feeling like being watched it wasn’t pitch black just dark and i looked to the end of my bed and straight away I could see 3 tall dark shadow like figures just standing and watching me at the bottom of my bed and I couldn’t see faces but they had like cowboy hats on or old western hats or something and I said , “Yo what do u want? Try anything and I’ll rearrange ya.” The shadows didn’t move one bit they just stayed exactly where they were looking at me and I got up didn’t go near them was a bit creeped out but went to the toilet and I said, “You better be gone when it get back.” 10 seconds later they were gone and no one believed me but I googled shadow figures with hats on and they are called “THE HAT MAN “ and I was surprised that other people around the world have experienced the same beings 3 shadow figures in hats weird shit creepy as I only seen em once and never again and I don’t know what they wanted or what they are but if I was not a fearless person in life that shit would scare the hell out of people I was creeped out but not scared. I never get scared and that’s why I believe God also saved me because I can handle it and find the truth without it ruining my life and affecting me. – Just a Voice – https://www.quora.com/Can-you-share-a-creepy-Christmas-story
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I was about 16, it was Christmas Eve and snowing heavily. My parents and myself were sitting in the living room with the Christmas tree lights on, having eggnog and opening up my stocking gifts as was our tradition.
We suddenly heard the door knocker banging really loudly three times. We see no one out the window but my dad opened up the door and looked down. There was a bloody black cat lying across the threshold across the snow. There were no human footprints in the snow, no tire tracks and logistically there was nowhere and no way that we would have not seen anyone if they put the cat there. My family and myself are huge animal lovers. Of course, we took it in and made it comfortable. It was a young, male that was not fixed and had been in a terrible fight. A few days later we took it to a vet and he recovered nicely. The weird thing is aside from the knocking and no footprints in the snow was my mom gave it to a friend of ours that lived down the street. About four or five months later the cat now happily part of the family, woke them all up by howling and screaming, just freaking the fuck out. Turns out an electrical fire had started in the garage and one of the cars was also on fire. They all woke up everyone was ok and the car didn’t blow up and only the garage was damaged. But they were very lucky in general but especially because there were all kinds of flammable stuff in the garage. Initially they called him something stupid like Shadow but then they renamed him Clark after Superman. He was a really nice cat and lived to be pretty old. – Knives Out 21 – https://www.reddit.com/r/ParanormalEncounters/comments/18fq07b/does_anyone_have_any_good_creepy_christmas_stories/
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This story takes place four years ago and it still haunts me to this day. It was Christmas night and my family were driving home from this fancy restaurant. I, unlike my family, wasn’t tired, so the forty-five-minute drive seemed perpetual. On top of that, my little sister was constantly moaning about how her friend didn’t get her anything for Christmas. After about 20 minutes of driving my dad stopped at a gas station to get some cigarettes and my sister, brother and mother all got out to pee. I stayed in the car as I had already gone before we left. Once they all left I decided to play a few games on my phone. I looked at the car clock and saw that ten minutes had passed, so I immediately wondered what was taking them so long. As soon as I peered out the car window, I saw a man staring at our car. The man startled me as I didn’t know how long he had been watching. What made it even more unnerving is that he had a plain blank face, no expression was shown. It was hard to make out any features as it was pretty dark, and he wasn’t standing in an illuminated part of the station. He was about 5 foot 9 and looked to be middle aged. Once he saw me notice him, he started walking towards the car, and I’d be lying to you If I said I wasn’t scared. Luckily my dad came back with the rest of the family just as the man took a couple steps. My dad apologised and told me he had been in an argument with the cashier. I didn’t care, I was just glad that my dad was with me. I took another glance at the man outside, and he was still staring, but this time he had an annoyed look on his face. We drove off and for the rest of the car ride, I couldn’t stop thinking about that man. This wouldn’t have been too bad if it had ended there, but it didn’t. Later that night, I was watching YouTube while everyone else slept, and luckily for me, a storm was raging over us. I enjoy storms, it makes me cosy as I’m laying bed. I put my phone down and just enjoyed the ambience. That didn’t last for long as I heard something smash into the window behind me. I lurched forward and nearly fell out of the bed. I thought a bird had just smashed into the window. I parted the blinds and what I saw next haunted me. I saw a man standing out by my parent’s cars, looking up at my room. I took a closer look and I nearly had a heart attack. It was the same man that I saw at the gas station, only this time, when our eyes met, he grinned. Being the fourteen-year-old I was, I did the manly thing and screamed at the top of my lungs. My dad came running down the stairs and entered my room. “Why the fuck are you screaming?” He said. I told him about the man and I explained everything that had happened. My dad grabbed a baseball bat and told me to call the police. After 10 minutes, the police turned up outside our house and found the man in our shed. He got arrested and that was the last time I saw him. The next day my dad inspected the house and we found the handle of our back door had been damaged, but not completely broken. This gives me an eerie feeling as if he actually managed to get in he could have harmed us or possibly killed us. – r/MrNightmare – https://www.reddit.com/r/MrNightmare/comments/7k9qzj/my_scary_christmas_story_true/