Come on in. Gather round the hearth.

Once a year, folklore tells us, the world thins. The wind sounds like hooves where hooves should not be, and ancient riders move along the edges of reality.

In this episode of Geek Pizza, we explore the Wild Hunt as more than a ghost story. We look at it as a moving boundary, a reminder that thresholds, not dates, are what truly change us.

Along the way, we turn to The Hogfather as a modern myth that understands an old truth. Belief is infrastructure. Rituals do not just celebrate the world. They hold it together. And when belief falters, something else still rides the track.

This is a winter story about doorways, crossroads, and the danger of standing halfway through a choice.

Because New Year’s does not change you.
Stepping across a threshold does.

A Christmas ghost story from the Appalachian holler.

This Geek Pizza Holiday Special reimagines A Christmas Carol as a fireside folk tale set in a coal-town valley, filled with bottle trees, candlelit windows, and restless spirits.

Eben Crane has money, property, and power, but on Christmas Eve, he is forced to face the cost of a life lived cold. Three spirits walk him through memory, consequence, and the future still waiting to be changed.

Atmospheric. Narrative. Appalachian to the bone.

Light the fire.
Listen close.
Christmas is knocking.

From the misty lochs of Scotland to the deltas of Africa, every river has its ghosts. Join me by the hearth as we delve into tales of the Kelpie, the Washer at the Ford, the Nøkk, the Lorelei, the Water Panther, and Mami Wata spirits, which remind us that water remembers.

Come on in, kinfolk, the creek’s whispering tonight.