Update: Goatwatch 2006

What the heck? The Christmas goat is still standing. I’m starting to lose faith in the vandals of Gävle.

Behind Door #14: O Come, All Ye Cephalopods

I was going to wait until tomorrow to remind everyone about the upcoming Cephalopodmas holiday, but then I thought that it really made more sense to mention it eight days in advance instead of seven.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be celebrating all things tentacular with my cephalopod-crazed siblings. We’ll be eating spaetzle and drinking hefeweizen at Ludwig’s Garten (affectionately known as Mad King Ludwig’s) in Philadelphia.

Wishing you merry molluscs!

P.S. What do you mean “Cephalopodmas” is not in the spell-checker?!

Behind Door #9: Burn, Billy, Burn

One of my favorite Swedish Christmas traditions was picked up by the AP this year. Every year the city of Gävle has put up an enormous straw goat on the town square. (You can find smaller versions decorating Swedish homes.)

The actual display of the goat—billed as the world’s biggest—is not the interesting part, though. What makes it my favorite tradition is that in twenty-two of the forty years they’ve put up a Christmas goat, someone’s managed to destroy it.

Most years someone merely burns the goat, but it’s also been run over by a car or been smashed to bits. Some of the vandals have had a particular flair for the dramatic. For instance, according to the article:

The 2005 vandals — who witnesses said were dressed up as Santa Claus and the Gingerbread Man — remain at large. The pair fired flaming arrows at the goat, reducing it to its steel skeleton.

The  city’s Christmas Web site gives a complete, year-by-year accounting of the goat’s fate.

This year city officals claim that the goat has burned for the last time. They’ve impregnated the straw with some sort of space-age flame retardant and put up two twenty-four hour Web cams (1, 2) so the eyes of the world can keep watch.

I can’t help feeling they’ve missed the point. The world’s largest goat rates a giant “meh.” The world’s largest goat that happens to get destroyed in some amusing ways, well, that’s something I’ll even blog about. I mean, aren’t goats meant to be sacrificed?

So, I’ll go on checking the Web cams, but I’ll be waiting to see the goat in flames.

Behind Door #8: The War on Krampus

My sister Mars—source of all things Krampus-y sent me this link to a Reuters story about some Austrian scrooges trying to ban Krampus because he scares children.

Come on, now. Krampus only switches the naughty. The good boys and girls have nothing to worry about.

The headline reads “Santa’s Evil Sidekick? Who knew?” But the URL is even funnier: “odd_austria_christmas_devil1.”

If I didn’t have to clean my house in preparation for the arrival of house guests I’d be all over making “Stop the War on Krampus” buttons for people to post on their blogs.

Behind Door #6: Grüß von Krampus!

Greetings from Krampus, St. Nicholas’s vaguely satanic-looking, central European henchman!

Sometime last year, my sister Mars got her hands on a book of mostly Austrian and Hungarian postcards from sometime around the end of the 19th century, all of which featured Krampus. A little over a year ago, Mars sent out her first Krampus cards.

With his furry pelt, hooves, horns, and a tongue to make Gene Simmons envious, Krampus seemed at home on Halloween, but Mars soon dubbed him “a creature for all seasons” and began sending out appropriately themed Krampus cards for other holidays. Last Christmas, the cards included a brief note about his origins:

Certain tradition holds that jolly old St Nick had a helper—more accurately, a henchman—Krampus.

Good little ones could expect happy gifts like new wooden clogs, iPods, felt dollies, Xboxes, and more. Ah yes! Anything for those sweet kiddie-pies!

But OH, the very naughty children! What could they expect? Nothing so benign as a lump of coal in their stockings or a gift certificate to JC Penny’s! Oh no! With his birch switch Krampus would come for them. If the child had only misbehaved, they might merely be disciplined with that wicked switch, but those who were truly bad had a different, more terrible fate in store for them. Krampus would carry them away never ever to be seen again. Alas! If only they had eaten all their sprouts!

Every December 5th, the toodly folk of Salzburg, Austria still celebrate Krampuslauf or the Running of the Krampus. What a delightful and instructional spectacle it must be!

Not content to merely wander the Vienna woods, Krampus has arrived in the US. Even as I type this, San Franciscans are celebrating KrampusNacht.