At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. – H. P. Lovecraft

…willow-trees and graveyards; endless labyrinths of steep, narrow, crooked streets, ……
antiquity hovering on grey wings over winter-whitened gables and gambrel roofs…

Lovecraft loved to write Christmas poems.

The cottage hearth beams warm and bright,
The candles gaily glow;
The stars emit a kinder light
Above the drifted snow.

Down from the sky a magic steals
To glad the passing year,
And belfries sing with joyous peals,
For Christmastide is here.

The HP Lovecraft Historical Society has discs of Lovecraftian Christmas carols.

Lovecraft himself absolutely adored Christmas.

Aaah there’s magic stealing down from the sky, or should we say filtering, like all those Great Races, Elder Ones and Outer Gods.

Lovecraft christmas sweaters abound online.

There are even Lovecraft Dark Christmas cards for the merriest season.

Why?

Politics, work, relationships—all these things can consume life, and sometimes feel bigger than we are and Lovecraft lets us crawl back into the shadow as a small thing…..be spooked….feel unsettled, to ponder change and decay at the hands of hideous ancient things.

H.P. Lovecraft, for all his creative genius did not have it easy….the madness of his father and his mother, his cancer, his depression, his marriage, his struggle to find success. He is the gold standard of holding it together amidst chaos.

Dread was his bread and butter, the ultimate staple of his work. 

Insanity is also a feature of Lovecraft’s work. 

“Madness rides the star-wind…claws and teeth sharpened on centuries of corpses…dripping death astride a Bacchanal of bats from the night-black ruins of buried temples of Belial…”

It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.