What Europeans I have talked to seem to fear most about America’s adaptation of the tradition is that it will be removed from its context, that purely as a horror figure, the Krampus will lose his connection to Nicholas and his purpose. If we look at the creature’s portrayal in the 2015 film Krampus, or examine the majority of American Krampus runs or costumed appearances where the devil runs unsupervised by any saint, this seems pretty well-founded.
The fear the Krampus produces has but one traditional purpose, and that is the betterment of children’s behavior. This decidedly old-fashioned mission is often downplayed in favor of other aspects of the character more attractive to the hip and progressive. For the rebellious, the Krampus becomes more devilish, more of a free agent of hell than servant to a saint. Neopagans treat the Krampus more as a Percht, removing Nicholas and his correctives altogether. For more gentle and progressive souls, he lays down his switches and becomes what the German call the “cuddle Krampus.”
But the Krampus’ stern old-fashioned ways are also receiving new appraisal. Here and there, and perhaps moreso every day, there is discussion about what good a little toughness might contribute in a child’s upbringing. A recent “Op-doc” from the New York Times entitled “Christmas Icon Reform” asked, “What do Iceland, Germany, and Japan all have in common? All got higher scores than the U.S. in core school subjects,” explaining this in terms of the menacing influence of the Krampus, Iceland’s Christmas ogress Grýla, and Japan’s New Year demon Namahage. Though tongue here may have been cautiously in cheek, the attitude is not that different from many recent—and more earnest—articles and editorials citing damages done by “helicopter parents,” the meager life skills of overindulged millennials, or the benefits of unsupervised play in “adventure playgrounds” rich with old junk, sharp edges, and splinters.
Rising dissatisfaction with the notion of trivializing “participant awards” should also strengthen enthusiasm for the Krampus’ tradition. Instead of the rather meaningless generosity of gifts distributed by the American Santa Claus, the theatrics of the Nicholas house visit are geared toward creating a dramatic character-building game of higher stakes. Even in largely secular Europe where St. Nicholas now more often judges children on performances of songs and poetic recitations rather than catechism, his judicious positive comments and small gifts still engender the same sense of accomplishment and self-worth. The fear the child may experience in the face of hovering Krampuses, condemned by critics as mere cruelty, can also be regarded as an opportunity to display bravery and a valuable rehearsal for later real-world encounters.
Those who view the whole production in terms of harsh adult discipline overlook how intimately the house visit is attuned to the child’s world of imagination. The encounter is made uniquely childlike and meaningful as it is played out by larger-than-life figures. Success in the encounter banishes ravening horned monsters to the frozen outdoors and brings a small gift and gentle words from a regal man with whiskers like clouds and hat like a church. The child’s small trial is envisioned from his perspective, made huge as the child experiences it. He not only becomes the center of this living room drama, but the center of an epic battle pitched between the powers of heaven and hell. That such a drama would be staged in the home, with elaborate, expensive costumes, secret preparations and care to ensure its success in every detail—all the trouble, work and love devoted to this child-centered production seems very touching to me. And in the scene’s playful staging, the adults at some level surely also experience and enjoy some of that same childlike grandiosity of imagination.
Even a small taste of fear can itself be a treat, as described in a December 1900 article from The Lutheran, in which the author recalls memories of the Belsnickel in the area around Philadelphia, and how children would “find a sort of delight and exhilaration in the very fright they experienced when the ominous birch of the ‘Pelznickel’ brushed against the window panes or shutters.” This remembered feeling is timeless, having little to do with prevailing values or moral instruction. A child’s delight in a certain measure of fear never goes out of style. A quick look at popular fantasy media consumed by children today will confirm this.
Beyond the Krampus’ potential for inspiring the best in children, his current popularity also suggests a resurgence of a raw appetite for horror that once characterized the Christmas season. From medieval plays re-enacting the Massacre of the Innocents with blood-filled dolls to grisly legends of Frau Perchta and her knife, we’ve seen how the seasonal imagination has historically reveled in the darker side, and I would speculate that there is something perversely eternal in how the human imagination, once free of the unpleasantries of the workaday world, conjures unpleasantries of a more fanciful scale.
In old, agricultural societies, it was winter that drove laborers indoors and provided those leisure hours during which the mind spun dark fantasies. Today we are richer in leisure than ever before, and our idle craving for this peculiar stimulation ever stronger. Where a few handed-down ghost stories once did the trick, today’s longing for those thrills is fed by endlessly renewed streams of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy stories provided on every conceivable entertainment platform.
Digitally delivered media, however, can never provide what an in-the-flesh encounter can. We crave somehow to get inside these stories and images, to walk among the characters that fascinate us, even to become them. Evidence of this is amply provided by San Diego’s phenomenally popular sci-fi and fantasy convention, Comic-Con and its thriving cosplay culture, by the thousands of visitors who choose to assume the appearance and identity of fantasy figures and the thousands more who relish the opportunity to interact with them.
Unlike these Comi-Con characters born on screens or within graphic novels, and later embodied by costumed fans, the Krampus is not a media creation. He is not from a comic book, or a comic turned into a movie, a sequel, reboot or television series inspired by the film based on the comic. He is a folktale that bypassed all this to become a costumed figure. He is the real thing, not encountered in a digitally encoded storyline, but in a million unpredictable living interactions. It is precisely those living horns-and-fur encounters that make the figure so compelling.
The Alpine devil is visceral and physical in a way that few figures are. Smelling of animal hides and wet snow, he pushes forward assaulting your ears with his bells, shoving through spectators with a force unknown in polite society, and then, of all things—he hits you!
What better stimulant could there be for a leisure-numbed society passing its days moving from one glow-screen representation of the world to another? The devil hits us, and whether we laugh or scream, at least we are now truly awake, experiencing the real world fully, and standing before a myth.
