Scared of Santa
Santa is enough to scare any young child as this photo album demonstrates. It seems that we get off easy in Canada though, with a piece of coal our biggest threat (hat tip: Michael Totten).
I have a friend from Switzerland who has explained to me a tradition that makes ol’ Santiglaus seem a greater symbol of goodness through the Manichaean visage of Schmutzli.
The Schmutzli (in Germany Knecht Ruprecht, in Austria Krampus) is the dark side of Santiglaus. Clad in a black cloak, his face often blackened with soot, he is the symbol of evil but has been “socialised” by the good Santiglaus and under the latter’s direction carries the big sack full of goodies – but also the broom made of birch twigs that bad children will get to feel if they do not behave.
Many Vereine, Fasnachtsclique or other associations offer the Santiglaus service on 6th December. For a small fee their members visit families and talk to the children. The parents provide a list of things they want Santiglaus to talk about and leave the presents outside the door.
Santiglaus used to be a rough and frightening tradition, and even now some adults remember being scared and dreading the evening when they would be told off and humiliated in front of the whole family. Schmutzli was quoted as the bad threat all year round, such as “if you are not good, on Santiglaus day you will not get any goodies but Schmutzli will pack you up in his big sack and take you off to the black forest”. In my family, in the black forest you had to peel carrots all year but I have also heard a version where Schmutzli makes you paint all the birch trees white…
Apparently the threat of broom beatings from Schmutzli is not such a distant memory for some.
UPDATE: Here’s a Santa that could make a grown-up shriek (hat tip: my sister).