Last year I wrote about how in recent years Tomte/Tomten (the little Christmas gnomes originating in Sweden) have basically taken over the United States. And I’m just checking in to say that the trend continues. There’s my friend planning on getting Tomte-themed Christmas nails, and then there’s a bona-fide 100% Tomte advent calendar, listed on Amazon and looking like this:

That’s right, cover your tree with the dang things.

I’m no closer to understanding what this means but it may tie in with broader holiday season trends, such as Krampus’s rise in popularity as a response to all the previous saccharine family-friendly fare associated with Christmas and Mariah Carey on repeat in every establishment from Black Friday through Christmas Day itself. I think folks in the US are looking for something different, from different parts of the world that still celebrate Christmas but have something new and different to say. I know I’m like this, and a peek at my Christmas playlist will show Czech and Ukrainian carols alongside songs in English that get less airplay (“Fairytale of New York” and “Spirit of Christmas”, for example) or reflect something sadder about the holiday (“Hard Candy Christmas” and two versions of “If We Make It Through December”).

I think this might be a reflection of the fact that we can’t paper over the cracks forever. We can’t keep covering this bullet hole with band-aids. Winter is not always happy and safe. Seasonal depression exists and the pressure to buy your loved ones’ affection is through the roof, and on top of that, winter has historically been legitimately dangerous at least in certain parts of the world. People could freeze to death or starve with very little in the way of options, and God only knows what lurks out there in the dark, especially when there’s plenty of it to go around.

A video I’m obsessed with (Hello Future Me’s 3 Ways Urban Legends Make Your Worldbuilding Better) points out that many critters in folklore, ancient and modern, exist in inhospitable places, where humans don’t always understand what’s going on. Basically every winter critter fits the bill, from Krampus and Perchta to the Wild Hunt in all iterations. Who knows what’s howling through the trees or scratching at your window, especially when it’s too cold and windy to go out and check.

And in our industrialized world, in the United States and possibly elsewhere, I think we kinda forgot that a little. We forgot a lot of things, in my opinion, but this one is seasonally relevant. We forgot that winter can hurt or kill (and it still does, there are a lot of vulnerable people in society who get by on good will toward men). And that bullet hole is bleeding through that band-aid at an alarming rate, and maybe we’re starting to realize this is a job for the hospital.