Since the Holidays are right around the corner, I wanted to know what traditions you all have either in your families, friends, or in your parts of the world. Over here in southern Germany and in Austria, we have Krampus, who's a demonic monster that follows the nice, godly St. Nicholas around. Krampus usually walks with bells, dragging chains on the ground, carries a large stick, and usually wears a basket. Why a basket? St. Nicholas gives the good children gifts, but Krampus punishes the bad kids. If you're bad, Krampus will hit you in the leg with the stick, and, according to folklore, if you're really bad, Krampus will abduct you, put you in his basket and take you to hell. Here's some Krampus action in South Tyrol (German part of Italy). I've never seen Krampus this extreme personally, but it happens out there..
I could totally go for some tamales. Also, over here, we drink a thing called "gluehwein," which is spicy red wine that's cooked in a pot. It's awesome on cold nights. To Stalin's Dutch fans, didn't you guys just have Zwarte Piete visit recently?
Well there's the Christmas market and uh...the Coca Cola advertisements? We also have the traditional Christmas Pudding which we make about a month before Christmas. We pour alcohol on it and set it on fire.
Well, I'm Italian-American, so we eat fish on Christmas Eve. Then we go to midnight Mass. Then Santa.
In Brazil where most brazilians are Catholics, at least in my family, we all gather in a house then we have huge supper, with turkeys, rice & beans and what not, this happens at 00:00 hours of December 25th. Later we open the presents we all give to each other then later on the day we have barbecue with a traditional brazilian dish, basically, it's awesome.
For Christmas we have big giant fest with family. It's full of people speaking English, Russian, German, Spanish, Polish and whatever else gets invited and its so much fun. We all open presents and celebrate. It's interesting, I hope i get lots of stuff. And good wishings to all.
