By Charly SHELTON

For most modern people, Halloween is the time for ghosts, séances and remembering the dead. Christmas is the time for family, happiness and holiday TV specials. Yet when one looks closer, Christmas is surrounded by death. A giant bird is ritually disemboweled and eaten for a feast, a tree is killed and its corpse festooned in living rooms, Christmas stories revolve around ghosts visiting from the past, present and future (“A Christmas Carol”) or a man is contemplating suicide and gets a chance to see what it would be like if he never had lived (“It’s a Wonderful Life”). Even the ancient feast day itself is celebrating a man whose most famous moment is dying to save the world from damnation. Christmas is shrouded in death. And anyone who has lost someone they loved knows that their absence is most keenly felt at Christmas.

It was with this in mind that séances became a popular Christmas tradition in the Victorian era – because they were popular all year anyway and when the family gets together for the holidays, it’s time to go bigger.

Master Illusionist Aiden Sinclair began his tenure at the Queen Mary in Long Beach this past Halloween when everyone was looking to the paranormal for entertainment. His particular blend of illusion, mental magic and other effects is unique in that, as he says in the show, the guests don’t feel like they’re being tricked – if something experienced is real to them, then who’s to say it actually wasn’t real? After a blockbuster opening in October, Sinclair wanted to mix it up a bit to make a Christmas show built on the same format, giving repeat guests a new experience while making new guests feel that same magic as the ongoing show.

“Ghosts of Christmas Passed; a Theatrical Holiday Haunting” is now playing aboard the Queen Mary and, whereas the standing show “Illusions of the Passed” focuses on the ship herself and those who have lived and died aboard, the holiday show focuses more on the family and connectedness of lives and how the living react when someone dies. With holiday-themed experiences, like contact mediumship through presents or listening to a ghostly tune hummed by a ghost who can see what’s in a random box near the tree, the experiences are independently fun and exciting while also being just holiday-themed enough to fit within the overall Queen Mary Christmas celebration happening throughout the rest of the ship.

The show is fantastic and really drives home, in a personal and important way, the value of family and appreciating every moment, just like any good Christmas movie. But what I liked most of all is that Sinclair is bringing something else back from the dead – the Victorian tradition of a Christmas séance.

Bring the family when they’re in town and come see the beautifully decorated Queen Mary and visit Aiden Sinclair in “Ghosts of Christmas Passed.” Tickets are available now at IllusionsOfThePassed.com.

  Charly Shelton