Ho, Ho… Uh-Oh!

Who’s Naughty and who’s Nice?  Santa’s makin’ his list and checkin’ it twice – so you’d better watch out, because he’s passing the information to Krampus.  Make no mistake – these guys worked together.  Some Jolly Old Elf!

‘Tis the season of good cheer!  The mornings sparkle with frost, the holiday lights are starting to appear. There’s no question that holiday time is upon us.  Even as adults, we still experience some of the holiday excitement and anticipation that we felt as children. We can argue, as we do each year, about whether Christmas has gotten too commercial, but the fact remains that Christmas is basically fun. 

And the threat level is low.

But it was not always thus.

Since the days of Clement Moore and Thomas Nast, we have focused on Jolly Old Saint Nick and his sack of toys for all the good little girl and boys. Kids lie awake in anticipation, listening for hoofbeats on the roof. They just know that there will be toys under their tree tomorrow.  But remember, he’s makin’ his list, he’s checkin’ it twice – he’s gonna find out who’s nice – and who’s Naughty.

As our modern Christmases got more commercial and gift-centric, we forgot all about the Naughty warning. We’re not perfect, but we’re OK. How can Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick hold a grudge? We tend to assume that Santa will give us a pass. We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. We’ve been letting down our guard. We’ve forgotten that Santa once had a bunch of sidekicks, and not all of them were Nice.

As Christianity took over Europe and the Americas, it officially replaced the religious traditions that went before. But belief is emotional more than intellectual, and people hold on hard to the traditions they were raised with. So although the central religious focus of Christmas – the Nativity – is pretty consistent, the more secular emotional parts still retain a large percentage of the pagan. Starting with the date – mid-December. The December date for Christmas reflects the timing of solstice festivals like the Roman Saturnalia and the Norse Yule, and beliefs even more ancient.

Even good old Saint Nick, the 4th-century Bishop of Myra in Greece, who was a real person, retains traces of an earlier age. The secret gift-giving seems to have originated in an incident in his life, where he threw three bags of gold under cover of darkness, into a destitute man’s home to prevent him from selling his three daughters into prostitution. But the sleigh and reindeer, as well as the Yule log, the boar’s head, and so forth – these are purely Odin and the Wild Hunt.

But all that nighttime gift-giving aside, Santa was often not alone in his nightly travels.  In most of Europe, Santa was accompanied by a passel of truly scary characters. So you better watch out.

These guys had different names in different parts of Europe – Servant Rupert, Pere Fouettard, Belsnickle, and others. But by far, the oldest and best known of these dark Santa companions is Krampus.  Krampus is a horned monster with a long tongue, shaggy pelt, and cloven hooves. If you were nice, you got gifts from Santa and Krampus would pass you by. But if you were naughty, then Krampus would snatch you up, stuff you in his basket, and carry you off to be beaten. (Or maybe eaten… stories vary.)

Santa and Krampus are often depicted in tandem. St Nicholas’ Day is December 6th, but December 5th was Krampus Night. Christmas cards would often show them both, and Krampus even had holiday cards of his own. But Usually Krampus is shown sneaking along behind in Santa’s shadow, or riding with him in the sleigh.

So, Jolly Old Saint Nick. Ho Ho Ho?? Make no mistake – these guys worked together. Who do you think gave Krampus the Naughty list??

You would expect that as the early settlers came over from England to the new colonies, they brought their rich and ancient Christmas traditions with them. But you would be wrong. Christmas in colonial New England was nothing like traditional Christmas in Olde England.

In fact – Bah, Humbug! – in 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned the celebration of Christmas. And I don’t mean ‘discouraged’ or ‘frowned upon,’ – I mean BANNED, as in subject to criminal prosecution and a fine of five shillings (roughly three days’ wages).

In the Massachusetts colony, the established church of the 1600s was Puritan. The Puritans were seeking to reform and ‘Purify’ the church by purging it of the idolatry (both saintly and pagan), the princely hierarchy, and the ceremonial excesses that they saw in both the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. They lived by the authority of the Bible, and their social, civic, and religious lives were intertwined.

So what was the Puritans’ objection to Christmas? In Catholic and Anglican Europe, the days between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night were a rollicking time. The harvest was in, the beer had been brewed, the meat had been salted, and the larder was full. So, it was a time to celebrate before the long, cold, gloomy winter set in.  All that feasting on boar’s heads, dancing, wassailing, decking the halls, and resting-us-merry that the carols celebrate – that was Christmas before the 1600s. But the Puritans did not consider a 12-day-long party to be a suitable expression of religious devotion – “Men dishonor Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas than in all the 12 months besides,” lamented one preacher.

In the 1640s, England underwent a revolution that drove King Charles I from his throne (and ultimately to the headsman’s block) and established the country as a Puritan Commonwealth under the protection of Oliver Cromwell. The new Parliament set about purging the church of the images and practices that the Puritans believed distracted from the pure word of God. Among the rulings of the new Parliament was a decree in 1644 that December 25th would thereafter be a day of “fasting and humiliation” and that anyone caught celebrating or setting aside their labor would be charged with an offense and fined. 

The Puritan General Court of Massachusetts soon followed suit, outlawing the celebration of Christmas in 1659. The law was called The Penalty for Keeping Christmas:

“PUBLICK NOTICE For the preventing of disorders, arising in several places within this Jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonour of God and offense of others:  It is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing labour, feasting, or any other way … every such person so offending shall pay for every such offense five shillings as a fine to the county.” (Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1659)

The English monarchy was restored in 1660, and the party-loving Charles II took the throne. And with it, he restored the public celebration of Christmas in England.  But Puritans maintained their power in Massachusetts. The ban remained law from 1659 to 1681, and continued in practice for many more decades. Throughout the 1700s, December 25th was a regular day of work and school. It was not until 1856 that Christmas became a recognized legal holiday in Massachusetts, and 1870 that it became a legal holiday in the United States.

So how did we get Christmas back? In part, because American society became more diverse in religion as new denominations flourished. Civic and religious matters had been intertwined in Puritan Massachusetts. They were not made legally made separate in Massachusetts until 1833. At  that point public life became a secular rather than church matter.  Add to that, the rise of the industrial economy in the mid-late 1800s and the more widespread availability of consumer goods.  The 1840s also saw a huge influx of immigrants – Germans and Scandinavians settling in the Midwest, and Catholic immigrants, first Irish, then Italians and Poles, in the northeast, for all of whom the festive celebration of Christmas was customary.

And in part we owe it to Charles Dickens – “the Man Who Invented Christmas” – whose tale of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge was published in 1843, just as the public celebration of Christmas was being revived. To a nation struggling with expansion, immigration, industrialization, and the loss of established ties, A Christmas Carol provided sentiment, nostalgia, and an enduring image of Christmas “as it used to be” – and as we would always like it to be.