Andrea Zuill’s Blog

Painting by William Holbrook Beard

When my daughter was little the idea of Santa Claus terrified her.  A large fat stranger, breaking into our house sounded suspicious to her, even after we explained that he would, in fact, be leaving presents not stealing them.  We decided to tell her that Santa was not real, but a fun pretend character.   When we would shop at the mall for presents, she would ask to see Santa, but only if we could do it by looking down two stories from the upper level balconies.  And yes, we did explain that the mall Santa was just a nice guy pretending to be St. Nick.  She wasn’t buying it.

Illustration by Thomas Nast

On one Christmas morning  she came to our room and asked if Santa had come.  “No”, we said, “Santa is not not real.  Your Father and I put the presents under the tree”.   “Well, I’m not going down there until you check that Santa isn’t in our house”, she said.  My husband went down stairs and gave the “All Clear” signal.  She still went down the stairs slowly just in case she would turn the corner on our staircase and see Santa standing in our living room.   She told me later she would freak if she saw him.

I am 1/4 Dutch ( my Maternal Grandmother was from Holland), and I am somewhat familiar with Sinterklaas and his helper, Black Peter.  My Mother told my sister and I a few things about her childhood Christmases.  Something about being thrown hard candy by Sinterklaas, and finding it covered with fuzz from his mittens and coat pockets.   One of the best essays regarding Dutch Christmas traditions has been written by David Sedaris.  It’s called, 6 to 8 Blackmen.  Please, please, please find this story and read it,  It’s so funny that I pee’d my pants from laughing while listening to the book on tape driving throught the panhandle of Texas.  It’s true.  I had to change my pants and everything.

This brings me to the real reason I am writing such a long blog entry.  Krampus.

Feel sorry for the child that has to face Krampus at Christmas time.  I first found out about the Krampus tradition when I had the hobby of collecting antique post cards.  There was a whole section in one of my postcard guides regarding the Krampus figure.  Generally, Krampus is like Santa’s hit man.  He looks quite devilish, with horns, fur, long tonge, one human foot and one cloven foot. Wikipedia describes Krampus as Pre-Christian Alpine tradition.  The tradition can be found in Austria and other European countries.  He comes out on December 5th, to switch or steal away the bad children, switch ugly old ladies and flirt with the young maidens.

 

 

Krampus by Travis Louie, http://www.flickr.com/people/travis37a/

http://www.travislouie.com/

I have to admit that I am looking at Krampus through American eyes.  My Austrian friend  Eva has only fond memories of Krapums.    She hopes to keep the tradition alive for her own little boy by someday making it back to see the Krampus parade in Austria.  Austrian kids must be made of tougher stuff than American kids.  I have seen multitudes of American children scream in horror at being seated on the lap our “beloved” Santa Claus.  In searching for Krampus on Flickr came upon many images of smiling Austrian children in the company of this Christmas demon.

courtesy of Krampus day website in Austria

Below photographs by Twinni.  See more at Flickr:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/varadero/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 12:18 pm and is filed under General Stuff, Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.