Every year I put aside time during the holidays to read the ghost stories of MR. James (1862-1936).

He's known as the founder of the ‘antiquarian ghost story’ for centering them around very old objects that "harbour weird and unsettling associations for us."

He began writing the stories for a close circle of friends and colleagues at the University of Cambridge. He would read them aloud every Christmas Eve.

The stories are kind of Lovecraftian, but without a surrounding mythos (a la Cthulhu).