Krampus

I wanted to do one more Christmas monster before I retreat away from the Yule time and into the dark expanses of January and the new year. I know that for those celebrating Christmas, Christmas has just wrapped up. But I figured that while you digest your mince pies and procrastinate getting rid of all the wrapping paper and cardboard boxes in your house, that we’d spend a little time on the big daddy of Christmas monsters: Krampus.

Well, I say the big daddy of Christmas monsters, but perhaps its more suitable to say the “big daddies” because Krampus is more of a class than an individual. Which means that there can be more than one Krampus – the plural of Krampus is Krampusse in German, or Krampuses in English. A Krampus – though I’ll probably just keep talking about it without the article – is just one of many, like how a vampire is different than Dracula.

There have been many different figures which could potentially fit the idea of what became Krampus, though under a variety of other names. In Bavaria, the word most associated was Kramperl rather than Krampus, and other areas of Germany also had their own names, such as Ganggerl or Gankerl. But around the late 19th and 20th century, the word Krampus became to be used far more widely than the regionally specific names. The growing uniformity to Krampus began to grow as the presence of Krampus overseas, particularly in the United States, began to also grow.

Krampus, the Anti-Santa

What I love most about Krampus is how it exemplifies some of the specific elements of the Other in Christmas. It has grown to represent the countercultural during Christmas time – those who want to reject the contemporary Christmas-spirit will find comfort in Krampus, seeing it as a figure who goes against the jolly-spirited Christmas that has come to be the way we understand it in the United States and even the United Kingdom.

However, Krampus is a bit different than this. In fact, the history of Krampus is inherently linked to the role and growth of Protestantism. As Protestantism took over Christmas, so did the role of St. Nicholas, and by extension Santa. In the early days, Santa was not equivalent to St Nicholas – they were two completely different figures who served different roles. St Nicholas’s day is December 6th and is still celebrated in Germany and other parts of Europe by putting one’s shoes outside for the saint to come by and slip presents inside. Santa, on the other hand, would show up on Christmas.

In these earlier days, when the distinction was much clearer, St Nicholas was typically accompanied by some “dark companions”, for lack any better word. The Grimm brothers did a solid job gathering some of these stories. The most infamous of these would be Black Pete, a horrendously racist depiction of a Moor from Spain who beat ill-behaved children with a birch road. Sometimes, the threat was also that he would kidnap the children and take them back to Spain. Krampus was another of these companions. A Krampus would make its appearance the night before St Nicholas’s feast night or would be accompanying Nicholas directly.

Krampus as Christmas Horror

Christmas Horror is not always something you see reference to but is actually not all that abnormal. It’s not just recent Hollywood B-movies which have captured the Christmas horror aesthetic – particularly one that you see with their own imaginings of Krampus. But actually, Christmas is the perfect time for horror and dark stories.

Christmas itself takes place during the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. This time calls for snuggling close to fires and feeling the dark creep in. The lack of sun tied with the ongoing cold and winter season is not exactly something jolly – I mean, it’s a bit creepy really. The growing presence of the cold, the winter, the dark nights, and the dead trees all sets the scene for monsters.

Some of our favourite Christmas narratives are inherently creepy. In the United Kingdom, there’s a special love for A Christmas Carol, which is a dark tale of ghosts and hauntings even though its all on Christmas. Horror is not just something reserved for adults alone – horror can be engaged with on a childlike level of fantasy and imagination without harming the young ones. Ghost stories are always wonderful to tell among children when gathered around a crackling fire on a dark, cold winter night.

Krampus in Popular Culture

I won’t list all the ways Krampus has appeared in popular culture, as it’s become more and more common. Some of the bigger mentions has been the 2015 film Krampus, a Christmas-based horror movie that features Krampus unleased on a neighbourhood to punish naughty children. Krampus has also been featured in video games, including the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth in 2014. He’s also been in novels, live action and animated television shows as well.

In fact, the growing presence of Krampus in popular culture, particularly American popular culture, has created a growing sense of dread for the original locations where the figure once started. His continued and growing presence has created a fear that Krampus will soon be fully removed from his original context in the growth of cultural appropriation in the attention brought to American pop culture.