I knew about Krampus and Black Pete but many of these are new to me. Christmas is dark.
I knew about Krampus and Black Pete but many of these are new to me. Christmas is dark.
Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger
I'm afraid that this article doesn't do a good job of answering the question it poses in the headline, but it does do a good job of describing the various yuletide monsters which are intimately involved in Christmas across Europe, from the Italian witch La Befana, who contents herself with leaving lumps of coal for the bad children, to Germany's Frau Perchta, who goes right to the heart of the matter -- so to speak -- slitting open the naughty children and stuffing their insides with straw. (Krampus splits the difference, simply showing up after Saint Nick with his own sack -- into which he stuffs the naughty children and takes them away. What their ultimate fate is, be it toiling in Santa's enormous toy factories in the far North, or simply ending up as a Boxing Day treat for the reindeer, is left unclear.)
To add a bit more context to this, these monsters seem to have vanished from both American and English celebrations of Christmas in the mid- to late-19th century, during a general "sanitization of Christmas." Prior to this, Christmas had been a generally wild feast and party, a "festival" in the traditional medieval sense, with people in costume engaging in all of the classical festal behaviors, such as drinking, wenching, gambling, and so on. (The tradition of caroling was originally more like trick-or-treating: it involved showing up and demanding food and booze. You can still see some of this in the later verses of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas:"
We wish you a Merry Christmas / And a happy New Year
Now bring us some figgy pudding / And a cup of good cheer
We won't go until we get some / So bring it right here)
The Puritans did, indeed, cancel Christmas, both in the US and the UK, although not simply because of the boisterousness of the festivities: they viewed the entire holiday, and in fact any celebration whatsoever, as being pagan behavior. The result in England was violent pro-Christmas rioting, a phrase that I never thought I would write.
Starting in the Victorian era, this began to change, with a few authors -- notably Charles Dickens, with A Christmas Carol, and Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (aka "The Night Before Christmas"), both of which were tremendous popular hits -- pushing a more "wholesome" image of Christmas, focused on family and charity. The era of store-bought Christmas cards, treacly carols, and rapid commercialization followed in jig time.
We should remember that this is also the time period in which childhood itself began to become a cultural idea, and (for example) fairy tales, which up to then had been much more of the variety catalogued by the Grimm bros. or Alexander Pushkin, were likewise being reënvisioned as "children's stories."
Which is to say that, despite its name, Disneyfication was not a product of the twentieth century, but was simply the endpoint of a much longer process which began nearly a hundred years earlier, and also chased away all of the Christmas monsters.
But this process was quite focused on the Anglophone world, and so even if you hop across the Channel, you'll discover a wide bestiary of Christmas monsters, all prepared to cause trouble, roister, and mostly steal children.
Now, if there are any kids reading this who are concerned, I want to offer you some good news: The child-stealing monsters all tend to come on Christmas Eve. So if you're reading this now, you're safe.
For this year.
If you are curious about the history of all of this, the Wikipedia article on Christmas is surprisingly informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
h/t Jordan Peacock for finding the article.
http://qz.com/317080/why-america-doesnt-have-christmas-monsters
Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger
I'm afraid that this article doesn't do a good job of answering the question it poses in the headline, but it does do a good job of describing the various yuletide monsters which are intimately involved in Christmas across Europe, from the Italian witch La Befana, who contents herself with leaving lumps of coal for the bad children, to Germany's Frau Perchta, who goes right to the heart of the matter -- so to speak -- slitting open the naughty children and stuffing their insides with straw. (Krampus splits the difference, simply showing up after Saint Nick with his own sack -- into which he stuffs the naughty children and takes them away. What their ultimate fate is, be it toiling in Santa's enormous toy factories in the far North, or simply ending up as a Boxing Day treat for the reindeer, is left unclear.)
To add a bit more context to this, these monsters seem to have vanished from both American and English celebrations of Christmas in the mid- to late-19th century, during a general "sanitization of Christmas." Prior to this, Christmas had been a generally wild feast and party, a "festival" in the traditional medieval sense, with people in costume engaging in all of the classical festal behaviors, such as drinking, wenching, gambling, and so on. (The tradition of caroling was originally more like trick-or-treating: it involved showing up and demanding food and booze. You can still see some of this in the later verses of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas:"
We wish you a Merry Christmas / And a happy New Year
Now bring us some figgy pudding / And a cup of good cheer
We won't go until we get some / So bring it right here)
The Puritans did, indeed, cancel Christmas, both in the US and the UK, although not simply because of the boisterousness of the festivities: they viewed the entire holiday, and in fact any celebration whatsoever, as being pagan behavior. The result in England was violent pro-Christmas rioting, a phrase that I never thought I would write.
Starting in the Victorian era, this began to change, with a few authors -- notably Charles Dickens, with A Christmas Carol, and Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (aka "The Night Before Christmas"), both of which were tremendous popular hits -- pushing a more "wholesome" image of Christmas, focused on family and charity. The era of store-bought Christmas cards, treacly carols, and rapid commercialization followed in jig time.
We should remember that this is also the time period in which childhood itself began to become a cultural idea, and (for example) fairy tales, which up to then had been much more of the variety catalogued by the Grimm bros. or Alexander Pushkin, were likewise being reënvisioned as "children's stories."
Which is to say that, despite its name, Disneyfication was not a product of the twentieth century, but was simply the endpoint of a much longer process which began nearly a hundred years earlier, and also chased away all of the Christmas monsters.
But this process was quite focused on the Anglophone world, and so even if you hop across the Channel, you'll discover a wide bestiary of Christmas monsters, all prepared to cause trouble, roister, and mostly steal children.
Now, if there are any kids reading this who are concerned, I want to offer you some good news: The child-stealing monsters all tend to come on Christmas Eve. So if you're reading this now, you're safe.
For this year.
If you are curious about the history of all of this, the Wikipedia article on Christmas is surprisingly informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
h/t Jordan Peacock for finding the article.
http://qz.com/317080/why-america-doesnt-have-christmas-monsters
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