The Real Nightmare Before Christmas

For the first half of my life, I enjoyed Christmas. It was a fun time. Then I found out that there was a giving element, too. That got difficult and my family often didn't seem to appreciate the cool things I had found at the military surplus store.

What really sucked about Christmas was the iconography. There wasn't a whole lot to like in the idea of a fat man wearing red and exploiting a bunch of short guys in funny looking shoes to aid him in his evil task of making sure that while bad kids got all the cool shit like Ataris and later Nintendos, the good kids would get socks, a pencil set, and maybe one mid-sized set of Legos or a Matchbox car. Nobody really cares about baby Jesus. He is either a doll or somebody's kid screaming its head off. Mary and Joseph looked like Arabs, and even back then we had the Ayatollah Khomeini we were supposed to fear. He seems hospitable in today's environment. Angels were too frilly. Nutcrackers in leotards? Sugarplum faeries? Tin soldiers? Snowmen? Reindeer? Little boys going rum-tum-tum-tum when every little drummer boy I've ever been around goes BAM-BA-BAM-BAM? It all sucked,

Then tonight I find out about Santa's evil sidekick, Krampus. Somewhere out there in Austria there is a remnant of the old Wild Hunt when people would lock themselves indoors to avoid getting swept up by the parade of dead souls roaming the streets in the dead of winter. I might just have to import this little Christmas beastie.