An old tradition, the holiday ghost story, is making a comeback.

Before video screens ruled our lives, families and friends made somnolent and credulous from feasts and festive beverages gathered around glowing fires or turned lights down low, and the raconteur of the bunch entertained all with ghost stories. It was entertaining and added a supernal glow to the evening’s magic.

The holiday tradition of ghost story-telling goes back as far as the holidays, back to the time of solstice celebrations. People have always considered the darkest month of the year to be the time when the boundary around the realm of the living thins and the dead pass through.

Appalachian people are famous, dare I say notorious, for the art of storytelling. If you are one who can extemporaneously weave a ghost story, go for it. If you’d like to share a story, but haven’t mastered the art, try a ghost story collection. Here are a few to consider.

Roald Dahl’s “Book of Ghost Stories” (call No. 823.0872 Dahl) has a short, eerie tale, “The “Christmas Meeting,” by Rosemary Timperley, about a young poet and spinster who encounter each other during their first Christmas alone. It’s short, only three pages, but wonderfully evocative of the mirror realms between the living and the dead.

“Ghosts: A Haunting Treasury of 40 Chilling Tales, selected by Marvin Kaye” (call No. Fantastic F Ghos) contains many great ghost stories. Top of the list is “Smee” by A.M. Burrage. It’s a Christmas story, too, about friends who play a form of hide and seek on Christmas night.

You have to practice reading “Smee” to perform it well. You don’t want to fudge the voice of Brenda Ford. Who is Brenda Ford? Wouldn’t we all like to know.

“A Haunting Treasury of 40 Chilling Tales” also contains Fritz Lieber’s great story “Four Ghosts in Hamlet,” which speculates on who Shakespeare might come back as.

Want a funny ghost story? Try the Everyman Pocket Classics collection “Ghost Stories” edited by Peter Washington (call No. Fantastic F Ghos). There you’ll find P.G. Wodehouse’s “Honeysuckle Cottage.”

It’s a romp about a thriller writer who inherits a rose-covered cottage from his romance writer aunt. It’s a cautionary tale.

If you want local ghost stories, try “Gateway Ghosts and Local Legends” by Lori and Ron Coffey (call No. K133.1 Coff) or “Haunted Estill County” by Rebecca Patrick-Howard (call No. K 133.1 Patr). Those books invite you to add local color and extemporize from your own experience.

The library has many collections of ghost stories and folk tales. The collections I’ve mentioned are not filled with gory tales of bloody horror. If that’s the type of story you’re looking for, see librarian James Gardner. He’s an authority.

If you tell a ghost story this holiday season and someone asks “Is that true?” Just remember the wise words of Trent Ridge, Kentucky, sage Cecil R. Ison: “That story’s as true as I can believe right now.”

Other programs this week:

— At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Meeting of Minds gets together to enjoy each other’s company, remember discussions we had this year, and think about topics for 2020.

— At 2 p.m. Wednesday, Kentucky Picture Show presents a 1940 classic about a shoplifter and her prosecutor who fall in love, creating tensions for his career and family.

— At 7 p.m. Wednesday, better watch out! Jeff Gurnee’s asking trivia puzzlers at the Engine House Pizza Pub.

— At noon Thursday, the book lunch gang discusses Hercule Poirot’s “Christmas,” summed up succinctly by character Lydia Lee: “No, it was not a nice Christmas.” Books are available at the circulation desk.

— At 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 20, Write Local members polish letters to Santa excusing their bad behavior.

But, really, there’s no excuse for not coming to the Library this week.

John Maruskin is director of adult services at the Clark County Public Library. He can be reached at john.clarkbooks@gmail.com.