It's that time of year

What time of year you ask? What, Are you dense? Are you retarded or something? What the hell time of year it is? It's almost goddamn Batmas. Ah, yes, Batmas. That time of year of year people celebrate a psychotic millionaire breaking into your house and beating you just short of death, but only if you're cowardly and superstitious. Happiest time of the year. Recently the whole Krampus thing has come to my attention. What the hell is a Krampus?

Back in the day in the tiny villages that huddled together agaisnt the vast, black, night of the carpathian forests, there were two distinct beings that came around during christmas time. One is St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, aka Ol' Saint Nic, aka Old Beardy, you know him, beard, sack, coca cola spokesman, gives gifts, but only to the good children. But what about the bad children? They got a visit from the Krampus.

source: your nightmares
You know what the Krampus would bring you? Beatings and nightmares. The beatings were delivered by that age old technique of a freshly cut switch. The nightmare were delivered from getting beat by a devil in your own home as your parents looked on.

So people used to dress up like a Krampus and go around during Dec. 5th, St. Nicholas day eve, and terrorize the children by chasing them around. After scarring the children for the life the parents would invited the Krampus for a customary drink, usually schnapps or kirsch (a type of brandy). Fortified by the drink and the ever ever intoxicating rush of inspiring fear the krampus would rush off into the night to freak out more children and get fucking plastered. Of course the church had to come in and ruin the fun sometime in the 18th century, but the krampus tradition has seen a resurgence in recent years. It has also gone from one night to a whole weekend of mask wearing, boozed up, festival of madness.

I find the whole thing really interesting since it sounds like an aspect of Batmas! Mainly the whole giving the children the gift of fear thing while dressed like something from their darkest nightmares. The other face of Batmas is the sheer ridiculousness of the whole consumer gorge that is the holidays. Batman has bat everything, you know, Batplane, Batmobile, Batcopter, and of course the ever handy, Batsharkrepellent spray. The krampus is also a yin/yang thing, krampus and St. Nic is to Wacky Batman (1960s tv show) and the goddamn Batman (Frank Miller etc). Totally weird.


source: madness

Krampus night also reminds me a bit of Santarchy, a pub crawl where participants dress in christmas costumes and get drunk. Funny that Chicago's Santarchy takes place on Dec. 5th. I wonder if there'll be any krampus running along with the pack of Santa. (ooh or a better plural for Santa would be a sleigh. A sleigh of Santa came into the bar the other night.)