Santa's Evil Helper?

When I hear the name Santa Claus, I think of a lot of things. The rosy cheeks, the beard as white as snow, the little round belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly. You know, just like the image from those Coca-Cola ads.

Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes, I think of SantaBot from Futurama. Then I envision something a little more like this....

If you don't watch Futurama (first off, Shame on YOU!), trust me, you wouldn't want to sit on his lap and tell him all your Christmas desires!

Anyway, I digress. So to me, Santa and "evil" just don't go together for me. Until I saw the story about Krampus. In Austrian lore, Krampus is Santa's horned and hairy sidekick. His job... to scare away evil spirits.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I ran into something that looked like this...

it would certainly scare the Christmas Spirit (among other things) right out of me! But evidently, during the holiday season, it's great fun for the peeps in Austria, Croatia, Hungary and other such places, to run around and encounter these creatures in village streets.

"Krampus is for the kids." That's according to one of the actors who dresses up as the devil-like creature. Ok, that definitely deserves a WTF?!?!?!?!

And people think we Americans are twisted? Stay tuned for our next installment, when I introduce you to another of Santa's helpers... one who, if you are bad, is likely to beat you with switches and cart you off in a sack. Ho, ho, ho... Merry Christmas!