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In the spirit of “we’ll tell scary ghost stories” here’s a roundup of some Christmas monsters.👹🧵

Jólakötturinn is a huge Icelandic cat who stalks around the snow eating anybody without new clothes on Christmas. Jólakötturinn was historically motivation for farmers to produce wool faster, but today it encourages children to donate clothes so that everybody gets something new.

Hans Trapp is a thief who goes too hard with satanism and gets excommunicated from the church. A social reject, he disguises himself as a scarecrow and wanders the countryside. In his travels he develops an insatiable taste for human flesh, so he lures a boy into the woods and eats him.
At this point God decides to step in. He strikes Trapp with a bolt of lightning that explodes his head, obviously killing him. But on Christmas Eve, Hans Trapp rises from the dead to eat naughty children.

Kallikantzaros are goblins who spend the whole year underground sawing down the tree that holds up the Earth. When the tree is almost entirely cut down, they get distracted by Christmas, and come above ground around to cause mayhem.
When they go back underground, the tree has entirely repaired itself, and they have to start all over again. This happens every year.

One way to protect yourself against the kallikantzaros on Christmas is to leave a colander on your doorstep.

Frau Perchta is a witch who lives in the Alps. She is absolutely terrifying. She has one enormous goose foot for some reason, and if you’ve been bad she will disembowel you and stuff your stomach with straw on Christmas.

Père Fouettard likes to butcher wealthy children, chop them up, and hide them in salt barrels. Santa learns about this and gets PISSED. He brings the children back to life and makes Père Fouettard become his assistant to punish the naughty children.
(Père Fouettard briefly made his way into American Christmas folklore under the names "Father Flog" and "Spanky". This did not catch on.)

Dr. Anna Hughes

Then there's the Welsh tradition of the Mari Lywd. Christmas carolers come around with a horse’s skull hoisted up on a stick with a giant white cloak. They aggressively sing at homeowners until they're let in to have drinks and food.

Finally, I'll end with Belsnickel. Belsnickel is a man - sometimes called the “Christmas woman” despite this - who comes out at night. He or she will show up at your house a few weeks before Christmas and knock on your door with a wooden stick or whip.
Belsnickel will make the children answer some inquisition style questions about their behaviour over the past year, toss some candy on the floor, and if the kids go after the candy too eagerly (s)he will hit them repeatedly with the stick/whip.

@annaghughes “Krampus” by Brom is a fun book featuring Belsnickels.

@annaghughes
Lol. Aggressively sing at the homeowner. This should be the very definition of Caroling.

@annaghughes Reminds me of Polish Turoń, also a monstrous animal head on a stick, but a bull's one (the name comes from “tur” - aurochs), and usually made of wood covered with fur.

Turoń

en.m.wikipedia.orgTuroń - Wikipedia