Like most of us, I assume, I sometimes snuck into bed with my parents as a kid, after a nightmare or ghost story I couldn’t shake. 

I also had a tendency to sleepwalk right out the back door.  

But that’s a different story. 

I’d curl up, toasty and safe in my parents’ unwitting, dormant embrace.  

Eventually, Willie would awaken, or Indy would. They’d scoop me up, tiptoe down the hallway, and snuggle me back into my own bed. 

Where I was defenseless against the witch living in the attic accessed through my bedroom closet. 

Thanks a lot, guys.  

I remember how cold I’d feel without 98.6 degrees, doubled, of heat keeping me warm. 

That abrupt temperature shift, to me, echoes in the days after Christmas, when everything goes from the bright coziness of twinkling lights, wrapped gifts, and cheery carols to, well, none of that. 

That liminal space between Christmas and what comes next is where you are as you read this. 

But I write this with the glow of Christmas still days away. 

Which means I still get to talk about it. 

I have my traditional Christmas activities, from Wanamaker’s to A Christmas Carol at the Walnut Street Theater to red, silver, and green-wrapped Hershey’s kisses tucked into a ceramic snowman on my bar.  

But sometimes, you have to be bold. Shake things up a bit. Introduce new traditions.  

I’m very brave. I know. 

The Rosenbach offered an evening with Charles Dickens.  

No, he’s not mummified or a zombie or anything like that. 

Although that’s not the worst idea in the world. 

Ticket holders were invited to dress in their finest Victorian gear — if they so desired — sip a punch from Mr. Dickens’s own recipe, and listen as Chuck shared an excerpt from his famous holiday tale. 

My husband and I, squeezing in a weekday night out, did not dress as Victorians. 

But. 

“There had better be people dressed in colonial clothes or I’m going to throw a fit,” my husband teased. 

I sighed. Rolled my eyes. Took the bait.  

Because Charles Dickens is Victorian. Not colonial.  

I mean, duh. 

We arrived in Rittenhouse Square with fifty minutes to grab dinner. 

We ducked into the very cool Monk’s Cafe, where the expert staff had us in and out in forty minutes, our bellies full of fries and a beer bearing a variation on our last name. 

Despite having to patiently explain the concept of a tab to more than one person. 

Which was entertaining in and of itself — no Victorian gear required. 

At The Rosenbach, I sipped punch, met staffer Edward G. Pettit — a celebrity to me — and inquired after a painting in their collection. 

Because, yeah. I am just that nerdy. 

This event stood in contrast to the one I’d engaged in just five days before. 

My oldest, in the days between Thanksgiving and her trip back home from college, sent me an Instagram post. Pennhurst Asylum had a first-time ever, one night only Christmas event. 

Because I think we all, on some level, think of homicidal Buddy the Elf and gargantuan ants when we think of Christmas.  

An hour-long drive for a six o’clock ticket reservation on a snowy Saturday evening is a bit wilder than I like to get.  

I’m not, you know, Keith Moon, throwing TVs from hotel windows in the ’70s. 

But that kid is away at college and sorely missed. So she pretty much gets anything she asks for. 

Within reason, if you’re reading this, my child. Within reason. 

Heading into the first haunted experience of the evening, a wraith of a creature, eyes completely white, turned her gaze upon us. 

“Do not,” she said, “touch any of my actors.” 

Um, was I planning to?  

No. No, I wasn’t. 

Also, I’m not sure brains were meant to be unspooled like that, but OK. 

A thick fog drifted around our feet as we followed the crowd through a building bedecked with one horror after another. 

I thought of my recent habit of falling. Was a floor I couldn’t see the best place for me to sojourn? 

That was scarier than any evil Mrs. Claus stroking my hair and trying to recruit my daughter into something likely incompatible with life.  

Then we hit a tunnel, black except for a tiny light flickering at the end.  

I mean, this is a habitual faller’s nightmare. 

Something humanoid and low to the ground scuttled past my feet, yelling and groaning. I lost sight of the strangers ahead of me. 

I don’t know why that was so terrifying. Were they really going to protect me? Was there actually anything to protect me from? 

That was a beat before I was back in the light, and moments before I was yanked through a door. 

Without my kid. 

OK, OK. It’s all fake and she’s in college. 

But — I don’t know. That was freaky. 

My kid, quick on her feet and already holding onto my arm, said “Nope!” and clung harder, tumbling through the door with me. 

“I know you!” creepy Buddy the Elf said. “You were just here!”  

Moving on. Moving on. Moving on! 

Then we hit a tunnel. I still don’t know if it was an optical illusion, a moving catwalk, or both. But the ground beneath me was suddenly less steady. 

And I thought I, of the many falls and healing arm, probably should have read the warnings posted outside better. 

But I survived. 

And it’s Christmas. 

And a little haunted Christmas never hurt anyone.  

Just ask Mr. Dickens.