Krampus

I have found what was missing from my Christmas tradition: Krampusnacht. I don't know how I didn't know about this before and I don't know how my parents never found out about this. This one is by far the coolest way to keep your teenage son involved in the family Christmas festivities. I have been doing some research and what I have found goes along these lines. In Austria, Northern Italy, and as far as I can tell the entire Tyrol region of Europe with a tradition in the western church, December 5th (the day before St. Nicholas' Day) St Nicholas comes around visiting all of the households and asks something like "Are there any good children here?" And then he gives the good kids candy.
St. Nicholas does not come alone; he comes with his friend Krampus. Krampus is, well, he’s scary, he has horns and hooves and a obscenely long tongue he’s black and hairy and reminds me of most of the nightmares I had as a kid. While St. Nick shows up with candy and smiles, Krampus comes with an arsenal of willow switches, chains, cowbells and, holding with older traditions the wide world over, a big sack to carry off the really naughty kiddies. The gist of the Krampus story is that when St Nick shows up for the good kids, he brings Krampus along for the bad kids. What I love is that Krampus will actually act on the advice of parents and go after the children with sub-standard behavior and scare the daylights out of them. The tradition is that St. Nick would come through with Krampus chained up to show that he was under the control of the Saint and no harm would come to anyone. In my research, there seems to be many testimonials that indicate that the old man had a loose control over Krampus, if any. There are many stories about Krampus permanently psychologically scarring the particularly bad kids. The best of these was a guy who pointed out that he now masquerades as Krampus every year for his friend’s kids and the cycle continues. Not only does Krampus scare bad little children, but also he is a walking cautionary tale for young adolescent girls. It seems like the damage Krampus inflicts is more psychological than physical, though, and the guys that dress up are basically in it for the costumes and the drinking. Did I mention the drinking?
The thing that I like about this tradition is that it is old school. As in, hey, we are adopting this Christianity thing and we need to incorporate it into our midwinter festival old school. It has edge and it is not fluffy or cute. The real issue here is not that we don’t incorporate Krampus into our Christmas traditions. We don’t really incorporate anything with any bite into any of our traditions here in America today. So next year don’t just get the kids ready for Christmas, get them ready for the larger world, let them know that St. Nicholas is coming and he’s bringing a friend.