Christmas Horror Folklore: Krampus, Frau Perchta & The Other St. Nick
Today I want to tell you about the dark origins of Christmas, before Santa Claus ever existed. We're diving into Frau Perchta, a Christmas witch who visited homes with iron scissors and a taste for porridge...whether she had to cut it out of you or not. We'll also cover the real Saint Nicholas and his disturbing miracles, and the demonic Krampuses who worked alongside him to drag sinners straight to hell. This beloved holiday is actually as dark as a Brother Grimms fairytale….
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SOURCES
Austria info:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17405422
Saint Nicholas facts:
https://web.archive.org/web/20101010104847/http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=38
Krampus movie:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3850590/
The Krampus and the Old, Dark Dark Christmas Book
https://ereader.perlego.com/1/book/4234697/0
Netherlands history:
More Zwarte Piet background:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zwarte-Piet
The Fright Before Christmas Book:
The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas Book:
TRANSCRIPT
Today, I want to share with you the very real and very dark stories behind some of our most beloved christmas characters. For instance, did you know that St. Nick used to send naughty kids to the pits of hell? Or that he gets a lot of inspiration from a christmas witch that would cut naughty children into pieces. This beloved holiday is actually as dark as a Brother Grimms fairytale….
Welcome back to heart starts pounding, I’m your host Kaelyn Moore, and today, it feels great to be here, cozied up in the rogue detecting society headquarters. I love this time of year, and as you know if you’re a regular, one of our favorite things to do is to talk about folkore–we’ve talked about terrifying tales from Appalachia, some of the origins of Gothic horror, and even holidays like Halloween, but tonight we’re talking about Christmas. Specifically, I want to get into some of the pagan folklore and traditions that worked their way into what the Catholic church had intended to be a celebration of the birth of Christ. there’s quite a bit of dark folklore hiding around the holiday if you know where to look.
Just a reminder, if you like true crime cases that read like gothic horror, mysteries that will keep you up all night, and…. Let me see here….. Tales of witches that pull out childrens organs like in our story today, well then welcome, you’re in the right place because you’re just like me. Wherever you are, make sure you follow along, subscribe, all that good stuff.
Before we dive in, I want to say thank you to everyone listening to the ad supported version of the show, and to all of our sponsors who make it possible to do all of the research and editing and everything that goes into each and every episode. This year I think we’ve put out 56 free episodes–the most in HSP history. This month we’ll be donating a portion of the ad revenue from the show to Feeding America, a network of food banks where 98% of donations go directly into programs and services that help people facing hunger. So thank you to everyone listening for making that possible. Ok, let’s get to it, and to start, I want to tell you about a pagan holiday witch that predates St. Nicholas.
Before we had Santa Clause, we had a christmas witch known as Frau Perchta. She hails from southern Germanic folklore, the same place that gave us the brothers grimm, however, she would have made even Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm clutch their pearls in horror.
Because though Frau Perchta shares some similarities with modern day Santa Clause, like wanting to know if children had been bad or good. She is far more macabre and violent than Santa. In her legend, she’d visit Children's homes on the eve of the Winter Solstice. when children were good, she’d bring them nothing. But if they were bad…well, we’re about to find out.
It was the eve of the Winter Solstice, over a thousand years ago. A young girl named Lena played with her doll by the fire in her family’s small home in Austria.
Across the room, Lena’s mother spun flax on her loom to make linen. She stopped, realizing it was time to make the porridge for dinner. She asked Lena if she would continue to spin the flax, but Lena just wanted to keep playing.
Her mother’s face grew serious, and she grabbed Lena by the shoulders, explaining to her that tonight, of all nights, she needed to obey.
Because tonight was the Wild Hunt.
The Wild Hunt is a band of evil creatures led by the goddess Perchta. Frau Perchta, as she is called by those who fear her. Lena’s mother explained that Frau Perchta has skin made of black iron. She has a long, crooked nose covered in metal warts. She wears only rags so as to hide her single, large, clawed foot.
When she arrives, the goddess looks around the house to see if you have completed your chores. If you haven’t, then she’ll shred your pillow and toss the soot from the fire all over the floor. If you’ve left unspun flax, she’ll smear it with her own excrement, leaving your family without anything to make linen. You’ll be cold and miserable the rest of the winter.
But none of that compares to what she’ll do to you if you don’t leave her some porridge. If you’re selfish, and you eat all your porridge for yourself on the night Perchta comes, she’ll take out a long, iron pair of scissors - and cut open your belly. She’ll get her porridge, even if she has to cut it out of you
Before Lena could ask if this was all true, there was a sound at the door.
The door to the hut flew open. A bitter wind carrying ice and snow filled the room and nearly extinguished the fire.
For a moment, Lena feared that Frau Perchta had arrived. But it was not a goddess - it was her father, come in from the cold with extra firewood. She ran forward to hug him.
The family settled down for the night and focused on their meal. Lena noticed that her father and mother only ate half of their porridge. Before she could take another bite, her father reached over and took her own bowl from her. She was hungry - she wanted to finish. But her father shook his head. He stood up, and carried his bowl and Lena’s over to the fire, placing them at the hearth. Her mother followed behind with her own bowl.
They reminded her that Frau Perchta was coming, and they needed to leave some porridge for her and her Perchten, the spirits that followed her in the Wild Hunt. It was time for bed, but her mother warned her to be a good girl and finish spinning the flax before going to sleep.
Her parents then went to bed on the far side of the hut, pulling animal skin curtains shut around them for privacy.
Lena was left alone now, wondering what to do next. She was tired and hungry. She looked between the bowls sitting on the hearth, the loom in the corner, and the curtain where her parents were sleeping.
She moved toward the hearth, picking her bowl back up and swallowing big mouthfuls of porridge. One bowl wasn’t enough. She wolfed down her mother and her father’s bowls as well. By the time she was done, she was so full that she could hardly move. She was sleepier than ever. The fire was warm, and her chores seemed impossible now.
She laid down, and her eyelids closed.
Outside, the night grew colder and darker, the wind picked up, and then, a blast like a trumpet woke Lena from her sleep.
The fire blew out It was pitch black in the hut. Lena called out for her parents, but she received no answer. She could see nothing. She could only hear the wind, and then, a cacophony of sounds - hooves clopping. Horses neighing. Bells jingling. Shrill, high-pitched laughter.
And, above it all, a voice that was both beautiful and horrible, singing a strange song:
… So you shall not escape
My old broomstick, the whips, and the rod
With which I’ll beat you till you’re red with blood.
You hands and feet I’ll bind And throw you into the mire,
Set fire to your braids and hair,
Scratch your face, and cut your nose,
And rough you up quite well.
All your dolls I’ll toss and burn,
And shred your finest Sunday dress.
When I find you snoring late in bed,
I’ll reel your intestines out from your belly
And fill the hole with wood shavings and tow …
The door to the hut flew open, unleashing a freezing wind a hundred times worse than the wind from before. It coated the inside of the hut, turning every surface to ice. She turned around in horror, looking to her parents’ bed. Her eyes went wide as she saw their curtain had been blown away. They were lying completely still, their eyes open in shock, their skin as pale and white as the moon. Icicles hung from their noses and chins. They had been frozen to death.
A cackling noise from the direction of the door drew Lena’s attention back around. She turned in time to see several horrible shapes enter the room. They were monsters, covered in hair and with terrible horns protruding in all directions. Their faces were covered with twisted, hateful, wooden masks, and their long, forked tongues licked the air, searching for prey.
These were the Perchten, twisted servants of the goddess. They held Lena down, who screamed in protest. This only made them laugh even more.
Lena trembled from head to toe as the icy wind chilled her all over. Her stomach sank and her skin turned to gooseflesh as a new figure arrived at the door.
The hulking crone was bathed in moonlight, and covered in ice. Her long, crooked nose was sharp iron, just as in Lena’s mother’s story. What the story hadn’t mentioned were Perchta’s hateful, yellow eyes, which were two horrible pinpricks in the darkness.
As she glided forward without a sound, she produced a crooked pair of shears from beneath her robes. Frau Perchta had come to collect. She lowered the scissors toward Lena’s belly.
Then, she began to cut. And The other monsters cackled with glee as they surged forward, ready to have their Solstice feast.
This story might sound like a dark fairy tale, but it was something that ancient Europeans actually believed in.
People really would leave their porridge bowl half full on the eve of the Winter Solstice, and then leave it out for Perchta. This is like the ancient, much less tasty version of leaving cookies and milk out for Santa. How the porridge looked in the morning predicted your luck for the next year:
If you heard her slurping in the night, you knew your house was blessed.
If you went to look at the bowl in the morning and found the spoon had moved, you were cursed to have bad luck all next year.
Worst of all, if your spoon had completely fallen into the bowl, then you were doomed to die later that year.
Most hoped that a blessed household meant they would soon be having children. Because children meant more hands around the house.
Once children reached working age, Perchta was a useful tool for keeping them in line. If a child didn’t do their chores in these ancient times, it could have serious consequences for the family. Animals not getting milked, flax not getting spun, and crops not getting harvested all meant the family potentially starving or freezing in the winter months. Telling the children that Perchta would destroy their home if they didn’t do their chores was an illustrative way of conveying the importance of housework and the dangers of winter.
Perchta could also be evoked to keep the children safe. Wandering off into the woods could have deadly consequences - getting lost, getting eaten by wolves, getting kidnapped by a rival tribe. The children might be told that Perchta was in those woods to keep them from the real danger.
So Perchta was, in a few ways, an early, dark, female Santa. But you might be surprised to learn that she was also the first Trick or Treater.
Halloween and Christmas were once essentially the same holiday. In ancient times, pagan communities harvested their crops and slaughtered their animals around late October or early November to get ready for winter. They’d celebrate this season and make offerings to gods like Perchta. They believed that spirits such as her would soon be walking the earth. They thought this was why the days were growing shorter and colder.
Young men in these communities would act out this belief by dressing up in creepy costumes meant to look like Perchta and her minions. They’d smear their faces with animal grease, tie hay around their waists, wear animal pelts, or even create elaborate horned masks. They’d knock on doors, and say something like:
Children or bacon,
Or I won’t go away!
This was to mimic Perchta either taking your child or getting her food offering. Trick, or treat.
But as the pagans got better at farming and animal husbandry, they could harvest later and later in the year, sometimes waiting until early December. So, depending on the area and community, the harvest might be celebrated at two different times, late October, and then again in December
When Christian missionaries started to visit these communities and convert them, they’d try to pull them away from their pagan beliefs by replacing pagan holidays with different Christian ones. And that, in part is how late October/early November festivals became All Saints Day,
But the pagans still celebrated another december harvest celebration that the christians needed to transform into a christian one…. And so maybe you see where I’m going with this.
So slowly, over time, Perchta, transformed into Santa. Which is why early Santa/ St. Nick Folklore is absolutely terrifying…
If Perchta was a predecessor to Santa, you might be wondering how we went from a child-eating death goddess to the Santa we have today. Well, there’s actually an important figure who helped make this transition happen.
You’ve heard Santa referred to as “St. Nick,” an official saint of the Catholic Church who they believe performed miracles.
What you might not know is that he wasn’t originally some jolly Austrian man with a white beard. We haven’t quite made it to that version just yet in our tour of dark holiday folklore. Saint Nicholas was Greek, and lived in the mediterranean. his beard was probably darker in color,
St. Nick did travel down chimneys, but not to deliver presents. For reasons that are honestly upsetting. and his miracles were…disturbing to say the least…
It was a cool, clear night in Byzantium, or Turkey, today…. Nicholas was a wandering priest searching for three young boys who recently went missing in the area. Their parents were terribly worried. To make the situation even worse, it would soon be Christmas. The thought of this drove him onward, eager to reunite the boys with their parents.
But eventually, the chilly winter air got the better of Nicholas. He admitted to himself that he needed to seek shelter and resume his search in the morning.
So he stopped by a small inn on the side of the road. The lights were all off, and He knocked at the door half expecting no answer. But after a few moments, he heard some rustling, and a latch being undone. The door creaked inward, exposing a sinister figure lit only by candlelight.
The very sight of the man filled Nicholas with dread. His face was covered in strange, putrescent blotches, and his one good eye glared out from beneath a single, bushy eyebrow. When he opened his mouth to speak, he revealed rotten, brown teeth framed by a greasy, black moustache.
Nicholas showed some coins and said he was looking for a place to spend the night. The innkeeper glared at Nicholas and let out a huff, but he took the coins and waved him inside.
As Nicholas surveyed the inn, he found something unsettling - at the center of the inn, situated over a massive hearth, sat a large, black kettle, simmering with some unknown dinner. The smell was enough to nearly chase Nicholas back outside. But something urged him on - he wished to see what was in the pot.
He walked forward, lifting the lid on the kettle. His eyes stung and he pinched his nose to protect from the assault on his senses. The stew was even more foul up close. His eyes stopped stinging just long enough for him to get a look at the contents.
There, situated among potatoes and turnips, were several sets of small human hands and feet. And then a portion of a face bubbled to the surface, and he recognized it immediately.
Nicholas realized that he had found the missing boys.
Before the innkeeper could react, Nicholas pushed him to the ground. Then, turning back to the pot, he placed his hand above the contents. He refused to accept that this was the end the children had come to. Not like this. Not so close to Christmas.
Channeling his faith deeper than he ever had before, he reached out into the cosmos, beseeching the Holy Spirit to aid him. Without thinking, without knowing what he was about to say, he issued one solemn command: “Rise up, children!”
An unnatural light filled the room. The innkeeper was instantly blinded, but Nicholas didn't look away for an instant. He watched as the light fell upon the kettle before him, lifting its contents from the bowels of the horrible iron pot.
The body parts of the slain boys glimmered with angelic light as they slowly churned in the pot and then came back together. Soon, the dismembered corpses were made whole, lowering to the floor of the inn. As the light dimmed, the children’s eyes shot open, and they jumped to their feet. When they saw the innkeeper struggling blind on the ground, they screamed. But Nicholas promised that they were safe.
Leaving the innkeeper to his sins, Nicholas guided the children home. This was considered one of his many miracles.
A few days later, he resumed his travels, making his way to a large town on the coast.
At first, Nicholas was not sure why God had brought him to this place, but he followed his instincts and was led to a home in the center of town. It was a two-story structure with a large chimney.
As Nicholas looked it up and down, a passing old woman noticed him and shook her head. She told him a sad story: the owner of the house had gone bankrupt. He had three daughters, but with no money, he could not pay their dowry. And with no dowry, he saw no choice but to sell his daughters to travelling sailors. The transaction was to be completed the following day with a local brothel, but it would be worth it to have some money
Nicholas was shocked at the cold and calculating attitude of the merchant. He now understood why Christ said it was difficult for a rich man to enter into heaven.
But then, he realized his family still had a portion of their wealth at the local bank. Now, Nicholas, being a saintly man, had given all their other money away. But he took it upon himself to make a full withdrawal of what his family had left, filling his sack with gold.
That night, he wrapped a cowl tightly around his face, and climbed the side of the merchant’s townhouse with his bag of gold slung over his shoulder. Not wanting to be detected, he saw no other option than to enter the house through the chimney.
He carefully lowered himself down through the narrow space, trying his hardest not to sneeze at all the soot. When he reached the bottom, he peaked out from the hearth, finding the living area quiet and dark. He flinched as his head bumped into something soft and wet. Squinting in the moonlight, he saw that the merchant’s three daughters had hung their stockings to dry above the fireplace.
Nicholas knew that a merchant who was so proud that he would rather sell his daughters into prostitution than admit bankruptcy would never accept charity from the church. He knew he must perform a miracle. Or rather, he had to make his gift seem like a miracle.
He took the gold from his bag and filled each stocking to the top. Once his bag was empty, he climbed back up the chimney.
The next morning, Nicholas once again waited outside of the house, watching. A smile crept across his face when he heard the sounds of rejoicing from within. The daughters had been spared from being sold off at the brothel.
Suddenly, the front door flew open and the merchant stumbled into the street, his arms full of gold. He gave thanks to God, convinced that a miracle had occurred. Not knowing it was the generosity of Nicholas.
The actual historical figure we now know as Saint Nicholas lived and died between 270 and 343 AD. And clearly his legend has changed a TON since then. When you see christmas movies of santa carrying a sack of presents down a chimney for children, you’ll now know what he was ACTUALLY doing all of those years ago.
In the 1100s when Catholic missionaries were trying to convert Europe, these were the types of stories they were telling in places like Austria. And soon, the pagan Austrians who believed in “Perchten” and Frau Perchta were blending their myths and legends into the Catholic ones, but I guess leaving behind all of the child mutilation parts…
Now this would not be a horror holiday folklore episode without talking about Krampus.
Once the Catholic Church arrived in pagan Europe and began converting the population, they started to portray the pagan deities as weak and subservient to the Christian God and saints. Folk spirits like the Perchten could no longer be worshipped as forces of nature both good and evil.
They had to be exclusively evil, and dominated by St. Nicholas. By the 1500s, these creatures came to resemble Christian demons. Instead of long fur and wooden masks, they had short hair, hooved feet, claws, and angry little pinched faces. The word “Perchten” literally means “Bright one.” Over time, that was changed to a different word: Krampus. Krampus means claw.
Because that’s what they do - claw at your door to get in.
You’ve heard the name, maybe even seen the movie - but the legend has changed overtime. Nowadays, people think of Krampus as a sort of singular, demonic, anti-Santa. But originally, Krampus was not one creature, but many. Krampuses. And they didn’t work against Santa. They worked with him.
Artwork from throughout history shows Krampuses covered in chains that are held by St. Nicholas. You can see these as the chains of Christianity confining the Krampuses to a more palatable form. Peasants would have seen images like this and respected the authority of the Church.
The Church would sponsor morality plays in different villages showcasing this dynamic. An actor dressed up as Saint Nicholas would judge children as bad or good. If they were good, in this era, they got presents.
Finally, some good news for these poor Medieval kids!
But if they were bad…well, I’m afraid things could still get very deadly indeed.
It was St. Nicholas’s Day, December 6th, 1572, in the town of Gastein, Austria. A young boy named Andreas was watching the annual parade through town. It was a frightening display - all the local men were dressed in Krampus costumes, which included big fur suits and terrifying horned masks. They carried whips and switches, and smacked anyone in the crowd who wandered too close.
Some of the women actually offered up their bottoms to be smacked. This made Andreas blush. Some other young boys offered up their bottoms just to show they weren’t afraid of the Krampuses.
But Andreas was afraid - very afraid. No matter how many times his parents told him the Krampuses weren’t real, he didn’t believe them. Sometimes, when he was out chopping wood behind the house, he felt like something in the woods was watching him. Sometimes he swore he heard giggling and hissing coming from between the trees. He was sure it was the Krampuses, waiting to drag him to hell.
That night as the festivities wound down and the men in town removed their Krampus suits, Andreas finally felt like he could calm down enough to go to bed.
He snuggled under the covers in his small bedroom beneath the stairs in his family’s home. He watched the glow from the fireplace (SFX) in the living room cast shadows through the door and across his wall. The light calmed him, easing his fears about the Krampuses. But just as he was about to drift off to sleep, he noticed something strange.
The light from the living room was getting brighter. It was no longer the soft glow of a fireplace, but the bright, golden glow of something otherworldly.
The light grew until it was practically blinding. Andreas jumped from his bed and ran out into the living room.
There, in front of the fireplace, an old man with a long, white beard and a bright-red robe appeared. He held a large, open book in one hand, and a staff with a cross in the other. Andreas instantly recognized him as none other than Saint Nicholas. He realized he had come to give him presents.
Andreas ran forward, but Saint Nicholas held up a hand to stop him. First, he needed to read from his book, to determine what sins and what good deeds Andreas had committed throughout the year. If he had done more good than bad, he would get presents. But if not…
Andreas turned, hearing a sudden scratching at the door. Long shadows were cast by the moonlight through the window, creating silhouettes of the one thing Andreas feared above all.
But before he could scream, Saint Nicholas started to sing:
God’s greetings, all within this house!
I’m friend to all, St. Nicholas.
Have no fear, just look at me.
No wild stranger here you see.
My coming marks the year’s near end.
This Forest Man my basket tends.
Deeds good and bad we must review.
With ringing bells comes Krampus too,
What brings him joy brings terror to you.
Then, the door burst open.
Two actual, live Krampuses stood in the doorway, more horrible than Andreas could have ever imagined. They weren’t anything like the fake ones from the parade. Their faces weren’t covered by masks. They had big, black eyes with glowing red irises. Long, sharp noses pointed downward from the center of their faces. Worst of all, they had massive, wide mouths like some kind of unholy clowns. mouths lined with sharp, yellow teeth. Writhing, forked tongues slithered from between these teeth, anxious to get a taste of Andreas. Above it all they had short, stubby horns, nothing like the majestic animal horns from the costumes at the parade.
Their bodies were covered in bristling black hair like a bull’s. Their muscular arms ended in twitching hands with thick, sharp, black claws at the end of each finger tip. And they had legs like a goat, bent backward at the knee and ending in charcoal-black hooves.
The Krampuses raced toward Andreas. He tried to duck underneath the coffee table, but each one grabbed him by an ankle. They dragged him screaming out in front of the fireplace.
Saint Nicholas stood firm, reading from his book. He read Andreas’s good deeds - how he helped his father out around his shop, how he cleaned his room, how he was kind to his friends. But Saint Nicholas also read about his sins from the year - the time he stole a candy from a market stall. The time he cursed after stubbing his toe. The time when, just earlier today, he looked at the maidens at the parade with lust in his heart.
The Krampuses were overjoyed to hear all this. They dragged him further toward the fireplace, so close that Andreas could feel the flames on his skin. They hoisted him to his knees and held his face right next to the fire.
The flames filled his field of view. Andreas stared into them, and found his mind transported across space and time. Within that small fireplace he caught a glimpse of infinite suffering in a dimension separate from our own. It was a portal to hell, and the Krampuses couldn’t wait to throw him in it.
But then, Andreas heard the shrill sound of a whistle. He was pulled away from the fire, only to find Saint Nicholas was the one with the whistle held to his lips. It was a pleasant, melodic sound, but the Krampuses immediately stopped and covered their ears. They quickly ran to Saint Nicholas’s side, cowering and quivering at the foot of his robes.
Saint Nicholas had weighed Andreas’s deeds good and bad, and found him…worthy. It was time for his presents. Andreas trembled as he accepted the gifts - some chocolates, dried fruit, and socks. He could hardly believe how quickly his luck had changed.
But as Saint Nicholas and his companions faded from view, the evil creatures waved mischievously. There was always next year. So Andreas vowed right then and there that he would be good throughout the entire next year.
Ever since the ancient European pagans gave up worship of Perchta and her Perchten, they have instead observed a tradition wherein locals dress up as Krampuses in the service of Saint Nicholas. This continues into the modern day.
In Austria, the Hausbesuch, or “House visit” is an important part of this tradition. After parading through the streets, Krampuses are invited along with St. Nicholases to visit homes and weigh children’s good deeds vs their bad. They can also be accompanied by female angels, and a woodsman who does the actual passing out of gifts.
Sometimes St. Nick will recite good and bad deeds from the child whispered to them by their parents, but more often than not the child just has to sing a song or recite a poem and they get a gift.
But as St. Nick gets ready to leave, the Krampuses attack, jumping around the house, pretending like they’re about to knock over whatever piece of furniture the kids are hiding behind. But then St. Nick blows his whistle and his assistants step in, stopping the Krampuses.
In the 21st century, many people the world over have learned about these strange traditions through the Internet, and a whole new wave of Krampus mania has swept the globe, re-invigorating the character for a new century.
Commercial Krampus events have multiplied in recent years to attract tourists. The virality of Krampus even led to a movie released in 2015 starring Adam Scott and Toni Collette.
However, the American filmmakers put their own spin on things, making Krampus more the singular, demonic, anti-Santa that we mentioned earlier. Ironically the Krampus of the film has “elf” helpers that much more resemble traditional Krampuses.
Darkly curious classical- lighter, conclusion
Though Krampuses might seem horrible to us, and some of these traditions seem to border on child abuse, they harken all the way back to the ancient identities of different European ethnic groups. Austrians in particular are a very proud people who survived the conversion to Catholicism, centuries of Medieval warfare, and invasion in both World War 1 and World War 2. Krampus events are a way for them to re-assert their cultural identity after years of outside influences trying to force them to change.
Much of today’s dark holiday folklore might seem like the antithesis of the Christmas spirit to us. But for Europeans, it’s nostalgic, making them think of all the wonderful traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation.
And that’s why I love learning about this dark history. It’s not just the dark origins of christmas, it’s the preservation of folklore and tradition, and you get to see how much of it has changed and warped over time so that these pagan beliefs can remain embedded in the Christmas traditions.
And, for parents everywhere, it teaches their children to be good unless they want to be gutted or to be dragged to hell.
But what about you guys? What’s your favorite holiday tradition, no matter which holiday it is. I love diving into the dark history of these so maybe I’ll make another episode in the future.