Call me petty, vindictive, small-minded or even mean (just don’t call me late to the table for Christmas tamales and empanadas) but over time I’ve developed a greater affinity for Krampus than for Saint Nick (aka Santa Claus).
Because Santa has a better publicist than his horned counterpart, Krampus does not enjoy the same fame and love that St. Nick does. Whereas the jolly man of red suit and jelly belly can be found on almost all marketing and packaging material found in stores beginning in late September, Krampus — with his curly horns, hooves and overall demonic appearance — doesn’t lend himself to the necessary aesthetic of gushing spokesmodel.
While Santa is known for his bubbly mood, generosity and delivering toys to good children, Krampus is the yin to his yang, visiting the homes of ill-behaved children and swatting them with tree branches or simply carting them off to purgatory or hell.
(Let’s face it, both mythological figures are more suited to working in the National Security Agency or CIA because of their penchant for monitoring behavior and doling out punishment or reward, though Santa’s liberal idea of punishing a bad child is leaving a piece of coal — a fossil fuel that can be used for lighting and heating — in a stocking.)
As an adult who has learned and come to accept that the world is not a fair place and justice does not always prevail, the idea that a Krampus exists to punish the naughty among us is gratifying.
Take, for example, the person whose shiny new car occupies two spaces in a crowded parking lot (or, gasp, a not so crowded parking lot); or the person who parks so close to the driver’s side of the car that you are forced to squeeze in through the passenger side … are they not worthy of being swatted a time or two with a knotty birch branch?
And how about that specimen who stood uncomfortably close to you in the checkout line? Or the rascal who tailgated you on the freeway as you drove home at a reasonable speed on a rainy night? Wouldn’t it be nice if they were, even briefly, bundled up in a sack and carted off for a time out?
Santa rewards people for doing what they ought to be doing if we’re going to survive in a civil society. But who provides the stick to his carrot? Who metes out justice when the offense is too petty for the courts? Krampus, that’s who.
Maybe next year I’ll develop a line of Krampus cards that can be left on the windshields of bad drivers or in the coat pockets of strangers, friends and family whose rude behavior annoys us. The message will be simple: “Santa sent me to do his dirty work. You’ve been rotten more often than not and you should be taken far away from humanity. Be nice this coming year. You don’t want me returning for you.”
Maybe there’s still time to get a couple of makeshift Krampus cards to Congress.
