Answer the question.

We twa hae run about the braes

And pu’d the gowans fine

But we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot

Sin auld lang syne.

a weird christmas card

featuring the Yule Cat, Mari Lwyd, and the Yule Goat

AND GLITTER

Making Christmas EXTRA sparkly … just discovered Liberace’s 1954 Christmas album is on Spotify.

The infamous “Build Your Own Santa Claus” video aired 36 years ago today on Edmonton, Canada community television. In the decades since, the urban legends surrounding the video have been colloquially adopted by locals as a Boxing Day wish for those who didn’t have the Christmas they were hoping for. So if you’re feeling blue today, just remember the hope expressed in this classic clip, and as they say in Edmonton, “you can always build your own Santa eh?”

Krampusnacht is most widely acknowledged around December 5th in Germany. American pagans have taken a growing liking to Krampus lore but any pagan roots associated with Krampus are obscured as he is often credited as being a demon exorcised by St. Niklaus. The idea is that Krampus serves the will of good by way of punishing bad as he follows his exorcist in gratitude, supposedly in what way a demon would think to try to be helpful to the cause.

Depending on what Krampus Festival you’re at, Krampus today may take a few different forms. Interpretations of traditional Krampus masks are traditionally hand made, demonic looking faces typically with horns and fangs. The costumes are usually fur trimmed with shoes resembling hooves. Some carry chains and are believed to be hell-beasts whereas others who carry large bells are said to represent the more fae-like “Percthen” who drive away evil spirits with those huge bells. In other areas, such as Bercthesgaden, the Krampus character known as the “Buttnmandl” is made of straw.

By the 19th century printed depictions popularized Krampus as a dark goat-like beast, usually shackled in chains and carrying switches for whipping naughty kids. He has since typically sported a long, pointy red tongue that can reach out and grab victims. Artists continue to play with these visuals. This sapphic spicy interpretation I offer references WWE superstar Rhea Ripley as a muse for a lady Krampus who is concerned with disciplining grown women whose Christmas wish is exactly this, something Santa Clause can’t give.

Choice Christmas ornaments at the local garden centre

Dark Santa

made with NightCafe

I don’t care what they’re doing. It’s that they’re doing it with those demonic heads.

Chrimbo-Posting 2022

Happy Holidays from our strange family to yours.

Countdown to Kitschmas ... Mamie Van Doren's festive pictorial for Escapade magazine, 1966.

“Absent friends [natives], may we soon see them again! A merry Christmas to you” (1876) (via National Library of Ireland/Flickr)

Welcome to GINGERBREAD HELL, a miniature edible world of saccharine evil. Hand-crafted by the demon bakers of Hell’s kitchen (the kitchen in actual hell, no relation to the NYC neighborhood or the FOX television series, litigation pending), these charming scenes come alive - literally! - when ancient black magic animates temporary life into the little gingerbread skeletons and marshmallow murder hellves (that’s what they call elves from hell) so they can scamper around their candy villages doing little killings and ritual sacrifices, to the delight of the demon children who come to see every Christmas. Sometimes, the bakers will give a lucky demon child one of the living cookies as a special treat; what joy it is to suck the tiny borrowed soul out of a squirming, screaming little gingerbread goblin as you bite off his still-moving limbs! Not too many though, kids - temporary souls conjured from black magic might taste good, but they’re empty calories, and they’ll make you sick!

These scenes are from my new third set of subtly-evil miniature Christmas Village wallpaper packs I conjured with AI and meticulously edited and upscaled to decorate your Gothmas screens in 4K resolution, on my Patreon.

Enjoy, and merry Gothmas!