Christmas Darkness #1 A Main (Dressed, Puebla)

Light all the candles you want, the darkness will still swallow you whole with this collection of seasonal shorts!

In “What Child Is This,” a simple carpenter becomes witness to a great becoming as the virgin girl in his charge gives birth to an occurrence beyond all reason, by Benito Cereno and Miklós Felvidéki.

Then in Joni Hägg and Sami Kivelä’s “Nuutipukki,” a Nordic folkish tradition turns into a perennial nightmare when the annual visitor isn’t a cheery old elf, but his twisted counterpart instead…

And get a taste of Hanukkah Horror with “Each Light Brings More Shayd” from Elie Lichtschein, an unsettling exploration of the ties that bind us, and shapeshifting chicken-footed demons.