The Krampusz

As Daniel mentioned in his last post, today was St Nicholas' nameday in Hungary. Over here he is officially referred to as Szent Miklós, but is more commonly known as Mikulás. Last night he visited all the children in Hungary and left them lollies and small gifts. The traditional Christmas lollies are called szaloncukor and you can buy them just about everywhere at this time of year. In addition to being rather yummy, they are also used as decorations on Christmas trees as they are usually wrapped in bright, shiny paper.

According to Hungarian folklore, during his rounds last night Mikulás was accompanied by a not-so-pleasant fellow known as the Krampusz. From what I can tell, the Krampusz is some kind of demon and his job is to warn the children who haven't been good that if their bad behaviour continues, they will not only fail to receive any Christmas presents on the 25th but they will also be stuffed into a basket on his back and taken down to Hell.

Well, either that or they'll be given a bunch of sticks. I can't really figure it out!

Unfortunately, this story doesn't seem to scare the kids half as much as it scares me. Many of them were dressed up like the Krampusz at school today and they seemed to find much amusement in chasing each other around and doling out punishments for bad behaviour.

This afternoon all the kids from school and the nursery next door gathered for a special service in the church. In addition to lots of singing and a short play performed by our Grade 2 class, Mikulás himself made an appearance (sans Krampusz) and distributed even more lollies to the already sugar-crazed kids. It was quite a lot of fun and I really feel like Christmas is a special event over here, rather than just another excuse to go shopping.

- Amanda