Tag Archives: spirit

Family believes Christmas present unleashed paranormal activity into their Brandon home

 

Merry meet all,

The battle between winter and spring rages outside. The trees wave and bow to the strong winds. The grey skies hang low. It’s hard to say which will be the victor: winter snow storms or spring filling our hearts with hope upon spying a fresh green bud poking from the frozen earth.

I’ve been reading the excellently written novel Dracul by Dacre Stoker and J.D  Barker. Oh my god the novel is such an eye opener. This novel is the prequel to the original Dracula by Bram Stoker. I love the book and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It’s a great novel to read to keep you out of the cold. Apparently Mina and Jonathan Harker, the characters immortalized in the famous novel, may have been real living breathing people. I won’t give away any more information about the novel. I can’t recommend the novel enough to al you dear readers.

I watched the scariest horror movie recently. The Conjuring and Insidious franchise had nothing on this one. It was called Veronica. I heard about the whole scary supposedly true haunted house story from a horror podcast. Oh my goddess there were some nightmare inducing scenes I am having a hard time forgetting. One example is when the teenage girl’s toddler aged siblings violently snack on their very disturbed older sister. That’s right they ate her. I can’t forget that scene. It was hard to watch, especially while eating, and very hard to forget. Oh my gosh. I will never watch that movie again. But for any true horror movie fans, I dare you to watch it at night alone with the lights off.

Speaking of spooky, here is an eerie tale for you, my dear readers. It deals with a haunted doll carriage that infests a family in their home.

BRANDON, Miss. (WLBT) – It sounded like someone was knocking on the walls.

That’s how Whitney Merritt describes the beginning of the nearly three weeks of alleged paranormal activity her family endured after receiving a Christmas present last month.

The present was a vintage doll carriage. Her mother had gotten it from a friend of a friend and had gifted it to Whitney’s daughter, where it sat by the Christmas tree for the first few days.

The knocking, Whitney says, began at the beginning of the year. They would hear it on the walls of their Brandon home which they have recently moved into. The sounds grew so loud that on two occasions, Whitney walked to the front door thinking someone was outside. It was midnight so Whitney called her husband, Michael, who works nights.

“I think someone’s at the front door,” she told him before turning on the porch light. When she opened it, no one was there.

“And then about the third or fourth night was when we started hearing, like, boom, boom, boom, in the attic,” she recalls as she rubs her chest, leaving it red. At first they simply wrote it off. The home was built in 1992, maybe it was just settling in?

“I don’t know. Logical reasons I’m trying to come up with in my head,” Whitney admits.

But soon the sounds above their living room became so frequent that they could no longer be ignored. So one weekend in the middle of the night, Michael went into the attic carrying a shotgun and a flashlight, expecting to find someone up there.

“We were out there making so much noise,” Whitney says. “People probably thought we were crazy. We thought there was somebody in the attic!” But no one was up there. And so ended week one.

Week two started with a bang.

It was around two or three in the morning when Whitney was awakened from what she calls a “dead sleep.” The noise was so loud, she says, that she thought their dog had crashed through the window of their door. She grabbed her handgun and walked around their home, but found nothing.

In the morning while walking into the kitchen was when she discovered the bag on the ground. In the bag were the coffee mugs she had recently purchased from TJMaxx. The bag was three to four feet away from the table. Both of the mugs were broken.

“There was no way that they could have fallen over at all, Whitney says adamantly. “I mean, they weren’t on their side or anything… they’re not just gonna roll. You know what I mean? They just don’t roll.”

The next night, another bang. It was around 3:30 in the morning. Whitney rushed into the kitchen to find another bag on the floor, inside another shattered mug. This time shards of glass had come out of the bag and so Whitney began sweeping it up.

At first they thought maybe one of their children had gone to use the bathroom, but the light never came on.

“So my husband opened up the door real quick and turned the light on and there was nothing in there,” Whitney says. “And he stood there messing with the doors in the hallway for a minute just trying to find a logical explanation, like, maybe it was the suction that’s slamming the door.”

But the door never moved again.

“Hey, is Paxton home?” Michael asked.

Whitney said no, that he was still at school.

When Whitney and her daughter got home, Michael explained the call. He said that he was in bed when he heard the front door close. Then he heard Paxton’s door close. Then he began hearing knocking on the walls.

He called Paxton’s name five or six times, but there was no answer. That’s when he got up and walked into his son’s room. Paxton’s bedroom light was on, his Xbox was on and a bottle of water was “actively” dripping on the floor.

After telling Whitney this story, they had a discussion about all of the strange occurrences at their home and when they had begun. “We were sitting here and [Michael] just fixated on that little baby carriage and we stuck it outside…”

Since then, everything has been normal. No more knocking, no more footsteps in the attic.

The carriage now resides in the garage and has been placed on Facebook Marketplace for $65. “Full disclosure,” the caption reads. “It’s definitely haunted. Sooo. Yeah.”

Whitney did say that she eventually received more backstory on the carriage from her mother, who told her that the owner’s husband had been killed in a motorcycle accident on the Natchez Trace a year ago. She believes that it’s possible that that’s who she saw walk past her in the kitchen.

“We both strongly believe there is a spirit attached to that doll buggy,” Michael wrote in a text message. “With what was going on, there’s no other explanation. It all started with all the knocking and banging on the walls out of nowhere and I knew.”

Whitney says that she wouldn’t argue with anyone who doubts their story and that she, too, is hesitant to believe people who claims to have seen something paranormal. “I didn’t want to say any of this out loud because it sounds, you know— I know how it sounds,” Whitney says. “I’m not stupid, I know how it sounds. But, you know, it is what it is.””

Indeed. A spirit attached itself to the doll carriage. 

Credit to the website. 

Here is the photo of the doll carriage,

Copyright 2021 WLBT. All rights reserved.

Blessings, Spiderwitch

 

 

 

 

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Celebrating Yule on a Budget.

Merry meet all,

As Witches, we celebrate the Winter solstice. Let’s decorate for the Winter solstice and celebrate with a joyful heart! It can be done in the midst of this covid craze. 

Let’s get started!

Save all of your orange peels! I baked my first ever Yuletide bread. I had saved all of my orange peels. I made candied orange peel (mmm) with the saved peels. You can grind them in your blender to use in simmering potpourri and incense. It releases the most delicious scent ever. I will include a link on how to make delicious candied orange peel. It’s easy to do. I will also include links on how to make Yuletide bread. 

Go out for a long nature walk. Gather pine needles and pinecones. Bring them in and clean them up. You can even burn them a little in the oven on low heat to kill the mites or germs. You can then paint them, roll them in glitter, and glue ribbons on them to make a garland. Pine needles have that famous earthy minty scent we all love. 

Star anise Store dry star anise in a dry jar. That prevents the anise from molding. Star anise smells like licorice. Cinnamon sticks correspond with fire and in my opinion, earth related matters. Nutmeg, clove and allspice also correspond to Winter Solstice. Allspice draws money toward you. 

Bay leaves Write your wishes for the coming year on a bay leaf. You can either burn the bay leaf then to grant the wish faster. Or you can add it to the simmering potpourri. Or you can tie your bay leaf to a pinecone and burn the pinecone. Pinecones in the home bless and protect the home. Slice oranges and apples and add them to the potpourri. 

All of these herbs, spices and barks can be enjoyed in a simmering potpourri. You can save the liquid from the potpourri in a labeled jar. You can share and give it as a gift to a loved one. You can let it all air dry and reuse as a potpourri. Put your intention into it and let the magic unfold. 

I baked gingerbread cookies. I can’t wait to frost the cookies. It will be fun. It was fun and a lot of work to bake the Yuletide cake. If you are eager to try, I suggest taking 2-3 days to make it. The orange peels need to dry for several hours. I roasted the almonds and chopped them. I also cut the orange peel slices into smaller pieces. I blanched the cranberries and pierced the berries with a sharp knife. As the berries baked in the bread, they were dehydrated. It takes a while but the scent that will waft through your home is amazing. The same can be said for roasting the almonds myself. The store bought bread doesn’t compare. If you bake it now, you will be prepared for Yule! It can be sliced and stored in the freezer if you wrap the slices in wax paper. 

I  baked the bread in a tube pan. It worked just as well. The Yuletide bread is meant to be a tall bread but the dough still rises in the tube pan. I purchased mine at the dollar store. 

For those of you who are like me and enjoy listening to music for the holiday season, I can’t recommend the Blackmore’s Night Christmas tunes enough. Subscribe and click like to get to enjoy the beautiful music as many times as you want. Play while you gift wrap or bake cookies! 

Here are the links: 

Easy Sugar Cookie Frosting Recipe – Jessica Gavin

Yuletide Bread | King Arthur Baking

Here is some lore for you to enjoy: 

The Pagan Origins of the Yule Goat | Julia Penelope (patheos.com)

A Ritual to try:

Winter Solstice – A Solitary Ritual | John Beckett (patheos.com)

The True Meaning of the Winter Solstice: Hope | Jason Mankey (patheos.com)

Blessings, Spiderwitch

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