It’s the month of Christmas, a time of warm feelings and merriment that wonderfully counteracts the inhuman levels of snow that many of us have to push every morning just to get to work.
After all, we have to use that work money to buy gifts that only some of our friends and families will actually enjoy.
If you add the stress of having to go out and buy, you can really make the most wonderful time of the year a real humbug of a time.
But not to worry! Ghost City prides itself on providing the best experiences for those looking for something fun and invigorating, and the holiday season is no different. We’ve come up with the best ways to truly put the cheer back in holiday cheer, and in usual Ghost City fashion, they’re spooky.
For those of you who employ an entire workforce of people, giving them Christmas day to spend with their loved ones is a sure-fire way to get into the Christmas spirit.
Of course, many of you will complain and begrudge about giving employees a day’s paid work when they're not working, but they’ll be all the happier for it. And they’ll even come in extra early the next day to work twice as hard.
But they’ll be bright and merry, which will put you in a dour mood for the rest of the day.
Of course, it’s no different than your usual mood during the holidays, as you trudge through thick snow at the end of the workday on Christmas Eve, surrounded by that same happiness and good that you have to face every December, even more so by your employee the next day. Your stomach turns with even more knots as you fumble with your door key where you may have for a split second seen the face of your dead business partner, who has been dead these past seven years, on your door knocker.
And you’ll likely be in an even more dour mood when the ghost of that same business partner shows up late into the night and tells you that you’ll be visited by three spirits who’ll convince you to change your miserly ways or else suffer eternity on earth as a ghost dragging the chains of your sins.
You know, all normal Christmas stuff.
But we know for a fact that giving your employees time off for Christmas is the best way to get you and everyone else into the Christmas spirit. And if that doesn’t work, we have plenty of other things that you can do.
Sometimes the best way to get all excited and giddy about Christmas is to look back on old Christmas memories. You can call up your mother and reminisce on Christmases when you were younger. Or maybe you can look at old family photographs to see Christmas parties from generations past.
Or perhaps you’ll be involuntarily whisked away by a ghost that looks like a candle and forced to relive painful memories of Christmas past.
Like that time you were forced to live in a boarding school for several years, away from family, until your younger sister came to fetch you and said that father is a lot kinder now and he’s allowing you to come home.
Or maybe it was when you were a young adult and having a wonderful and merry time at your employer’s Christmas party. At least until your beloved came up to you and called off your engagement because you loved money more than her.
All the while gut wrenched to know that she now has a happy and large family.
Christmases sometimes come with those awkward family situations, but there’s still nothing better than to look back on all of those wonderful Christmases.
Sometimes all it takes to get into the Christmas spirit is to actually go out and embrace it.
Go out to a Christmas party with friends. Do some chaotic last-minute shopping and see what last-ditch effort that could quantifiably be called presents are left on the bare shelves.
Perhaps you’re in no mood to go out in the Christmas flare. Maybe you’re tired, or perhaps you’ve got no one to enjoy Christmas with. Maybe it's both. Or it could be that you’re sticking with your miserly ways and refuse to attend the fan fare with anyone or anything in the Christmas present.
If that’s the case then don’t fret because you’re involuntarily forced to do all of that regardless by a jovial giant green ghost who may or may not be aging before your very eyes.
You get to see all of the warmth and good cheer that you’ve missed for so long: bustling markets full of happy people, parties with friends, parties with your nephew’s friends who are saying nasty things about you, even a family party of the employee you gave Christmas off.
They look so happy and content even if they don’t have very much. And at that, their young but dying child is the centerpiece of it all.
Of course, you would be in no way responsible for that child's death, regardless of what the ghost giant hinted at.
It’s just one of those special things in special moments on Christmas that makes the whole season worth it.
Some of us like to live in the now of Christmas, enjoy that magical feeling before it’s gone. Others like to skip straight to next year by planning everything ahead of time. That means buying wrapping paper in bulk. That means already having next year’s gifts in the shopping cart. That means pre-planning where Christmas will even be next year.
Some people are just so excited about Christmas that they can’t help but meticulously plan for the next one or the one after that or even the one after that. Others just want to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible, either to skip the hustle and bustle of the holiday or they just don’t care for the whole festive season in general.
Whatever camp you may fall into pales in comparison to the dark hooded figure that just swept you away into your Christmas yet to come – whether you wanted to or not.
Now, the dark hooded figure could have shown you next year’s Christmas or maybe even two Christmases from now. But, no! It decides to show you a Christmas where you’re dead and strangers and relatives are divvying up your stuff all the while figuratively spitting on your grave.
Someone didn’t plan their Christmases accordingly
What’s even worse, apparently your employee’s sick child is also dead and it’s your fault despite there being little explanation or even correlation from anyone that says why.
All in all it’s not the worst Christmas you can have. And it matters little when you wake up the next morning as if all of this took place in one night or you just had a really weird dream.
Did you learn anything from this? Who knows. Did any of it matter? Who’s to say. Will you treat this more like a New Years’ resolution and say you’ll be good to all of mankind for the rest of your life only to quit two weeks in?
Most likely.
But isn’t that what Christmas is all about?