Christmas monsters
by digby
I lived in Holland as a child and very vividly recall the tradition of “Black Pete”, St Nick’s assistant who will beat you with a stick if you are bad. I’ve often wondered how I failed to become a total white supremacist after having that fear instilled in me as a little kid. The Dutch persist in this creepy tradition (which doesn’t really go back that far as it turns out) even in the face of international criticism, which is weird because in many ways they are among the more tolerant people in Europe. (And, in some ways … not.)
Anyway, while this tradition has gotten a lot of attention in recent years, this other one has not. In fact, I’d never heard of it:
Long before parents relied on the powers of Santa Claus to monitor their children’s behavior, their counterparts in Alpine villages called on a shaggy-furred, horned creature with a fistful of bound twigs to send the message that they had better watch out.
Tom Bierbaumer recalls the trepidation he felt every Dec. 6, when the clanging of oversize cowbells signaled the arrival of the Krampus, a devilish mountain goblin who serves as an evil counterpart to the good St. Nick. He would think back over his misdeeds of past months — the days he had refused to clear the supper table, left his homework unfinished or pulled a girl’s hair.
“When you are a child, you know what you have done wrong the whole year,” said Mr. Bierbaumer, who grew up in the Bavarian Alps and now heads a Munich-based club, the Sparifankerl Pass — Bavarian dialect for “Devil’s Group” — devoted to keeping the Krampus tradition alive. “When the Krampus comes to your house, and you are a child, you are really worried about getting a hit from his switch.”
Obviously “Black Pete” is some derivative of this horrible, horned creature. Which figures.
Anyway, here’s what he looks like today:
Merry Christmas kids.
But that’s nothing compared to this much, much creepier Christmas monster:
A record 17,000 people have joined the latest in a string of demonstrations against Islam in Dresden, eastern Germany, celebrating the rise of their far-right populist movement by singing Christmas carols.
The march on Monday night was organised by Patriotic Europeans Against Islamisation of the West – a group that has grown rapidly since its first protest in October.
Politicians from all major parties have been stunned by the emergence of the right-wing nationalists who vent their anger against what they consider a broken immigration and asylum system.
About 4,500 counter-demonstrators marched through the city under the slogan “Dresden Nazi-free”, warning that there was no space for racism and xenophobia in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.
Most Pegida followers insist they are not Nazis but patriots who worry about the “watering down” of their Christian-rooted culture and traditions. They often accuse mainstream political parties of betraying them and the media of lying.
They sang Christmas carols.
