👹 Krampus and Further Demons 👹

Making it through one more season of darkness

It’s officially Christmas Demon season.

If you’ve been following Haunted Librarian for a while, you know that in December we always get festive by telling terrifying stories about wintertime demons. There’s Krampus (of course), and his lesser-known orphan counterpart Knecht Ruprecht. There are the impish Yule Lads from Iceland and their enormous flesh-eating pet cat. There’s a skin-colored, one-eyed man-horse from Scotland who brings illness and plague. There’s a child-eating scarecrow from France, there’s even a festive pooping log from Catalonia.

You can read up on them by going back through old posts, or you can buy the Haunted Librarian Christmas Demons book, if paper and ink is more your scene. (I am beholden to the mighty Amazon for these, but it does look like you can still get one with holiday shipping if you’d like.)

Our family has loved getting to know these characters during the holiday season. They bring some much-needed light during dark times.

Our family Krampus card this year

One of our favorite traditions is Krampus Night, and we had a jolly good time reveling. To start, we had a homespun parade of Krampuses that marched through the neighborhood whooping and hollering and tooting kazoos (the devil’s instrument).

I borrowed a Krampus costume from a local German teacher, so I cut a decently demonic figure out there on the suburb streets.

better than Halloween. I gotta make myself one of these.

We came back from our self-made parade to heaps of chocolate coins and German treats. We sang some Christmas songs and drank many mugs of hot cider until bedtime. The house was loud and wild and full of kazoo-playing children. I loved every second.

Once the house emptied out, our kids set out their shoes for St. Nikolaus, who visited them with gummi bears, a few chocolates, some oranges, and a pocket full of loose change. St. Nikolaus left a heartwarming note alongside, which was (of course) co-opted by Krampus.

This year has been both tumultuous and wonderful, which is how things have been for a long time. But lately it’s felt so raw that it’s been difficult to come here and write it all down—both the ecstasies and the terrors.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in need of a minor surgery. I was terrified, and surprised to be terrified, actually. I didn’t have to undergo anesthesia, just some light sedation as they poked and prodded around my insides and fixed what needed fixing. It was painful, sure, but I kept waiting for something to go seriously wrong. I don’t think I realized how much I was holding my breath until I got through it. Nothing happened? No complications? No anomalies? No cancer? (OK, cancer wasn’t really one of the risks, but isn’t cancer always a risk for the anxious mind?)

I know some of it was my body’s way of taking tally of Annie’s death (this week was the 4th anniversary of her death, and it’s true that the body keeps the heckin’ score, whether you want it to or not). But part of it was just feelings, and nothing more.

I know so little about my feelings—about what they mean and what they don’t. Sometimes I’m amazed that I ever understand a single thing that’s going on beneath my skin—the good, the bad, the in-between.

As a child, well-meaning adults explained to me that having a “bad feeling” about something was a spiritual sign. They warned me to follow the feelings, but they also didn’t seem to have those feelings as often as I did. These feelings weren’t usually about me—more often they were about my parents, my siblings—they were about what would happen to them when I wasn’t around. I watched them climb into cars or go on sleepovers or take short trips away, and every time I felt sure, sure this was the last time I would ever see them.

Wouldn’t it be so poetic, so tragic for something truly awful to happen? Wouldn’t it be such a test of my spirits, my faith, my belief? Wouldn’t it be so terrible, so unexpected? And why hadn’t I stopped them, especially when I was struck by such an awfully bad feeling? Why was I so weak, how could I doubt myself and those telltale warnings that so often crossed my mind?

But they weren’t warnings. My bad feelings hardly ever turned into true catastrophes, and the even worse catastrophes were never pre-empted by those feelings. I was at a loss—confused and guilty, thinking that somehow I was so full of sin that the devil could easily fill my heart with doubts and confusing messages from beyond.

I held onto these feelings for such a long, long time. I think part of me still wants to believe that bad feelings can save you from something awful.

But I think those feelings have kept me small, kept me fearful.

Now that I’m older, I know anxiety is real, and that I really (really) have it. But beyond that, I don’t know that any feeling I’ve ever felt has shown me what reality is, besides the fact that I’m in it, and I feel a certain way about all of it.

I think that’s one reason I love thinking of Krampus and all the other demons, especially in winter. I used to blame devils for every wicked thought, every doubt, every moment of terror and uncertainty I ever felt. Now I see how much I just wanted to keep my beloveds safe, how much I needed them, how much I belonged with them.

I haven’t always known this, but know now how much my beloveds keep my feet tethered and my head on straight. I need them. And as much as I rankle against any type of conformity and tradition, somehow I still belong inside their strange and imperfect circles. These are my volk, my kin, my gang of wild beasts in the uncertain dark.

Early 20th century Krampus Night celebrations

Many of my beloveds still find comfort and meaning inside religious traditions, traditions that I no longer agree with or practice. Sometimes that loss of tradition and emotional continuity can feel like a great, yawning cavern of separation. It’s a loss of belonging, a loss of togetherness. It can feel like being divided from your own blood.

But feelings aren’t truth, they don’t tell us what is or what will be. More often, they’re the ghosts of what could happen—of what we fear, what we hope, what we desire, what we dread.

They’re mirrors, not telescopes.

And so, as we head off into the uncertain darkness of the coming year, I hope you feel safe and warm and collected up in some circle or other. It doesn’t have to be a perfect ring, just one big enough to hold you and all your demons and doubts.

It might get colder, but there’s always a fire lit somewhere.

Be not afraid,

👹Becca Lee, Haunted Librarian👹