Krampuslauf

What says "frohe Weihnachten" (Merry Christmas!) like giant horned deamons??!! photo props to Crash Ketcham

So as legend has it, on December 5, Krampusnacht, all the Krampus come to carry all the bad children away. Last night was one of the Krampusnachts in Graz. Hundreds of these beastly creatures roam through the city in a huge parade to terrorize and abuse the children. 

Before going to the lauf we heard from our host parents that the Krampus are allowed to actually hit people with the birch sticks they carry with them! In the scary corn mazes in America the people are only allowed to run at you, but they can't touch you. Not only can they hit you, they will sneak up behind you and continuously hit you, chasing you as you run away, or they can pick you up and take you away. That pretty much pumped us up and terrified us to go to the lauf. 

We went to the main one in the center city, where, unfortunately, they had the streets, where the Krampus would be, fenced off. But it was still fantastic! Their masks are amazingly intricate and they have huge horns on top of them. And the Krampus wear chains and big metal bells to symbolize being chained to the devil. Even though they aren't technically allowed to hit us they would still run up to the fence and bang their sticks against it. A few would even reach out and face palm you or hi five the little kids. The parade was a loud, fiery mess, with about four-hundred krampus, a few big deamon-motorcycles, that were sometimes on fire, and lots of screaming. There where also fire spitters, and people would pour gas on the street then light it, it looked like cool snakes.

We asked this Krampus to take a photo with us, first he looked at us, then proceeded to climb onto the fence, I thought he was going to climb over it. After the photo he put his big clawed hand on my head, and ruffled my hair. 

I guess the Krampus of today have toned it down, the modern ones have even learned how to gangnam style and loved showing off to the crowd. It's was a crazy tradition, I usually associate Christmas with jolly costumed fat people and happiness, but not here apparently. Can't wait to go to the real one on the fifth where the krampus are allowed to run wild. Hope I don't get kidnapped.