Tag: holidays

Novelty and Tradition

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JillianEve, a YouTuber I follow, recently started posting Vlogmas content (in essence, a challenge to post one video every day for the month of December and/or leading up to Christmas, the rules are a bit vague and variable on that one). Her first video this year was about novelty and routine, especially around the holidays, and it got me thinking.

If you’ve followed this blog a while you know that I have been pondering Christmas traditions for a while, and observing changes in the US, where we’re embracing the “spooky side” with Krampus and multitudes of Tomten (I wouldn’t be surprised to find one of those little guys with “#1 Dad” stamped across it at some point next year, if one doesn’t exist already). In fact, it’s to a point that if you search for spooky Christmas characters, you’ll find list after list of the same ten to fifteen figures: Krampus, tomte, La Befana, Pere Fouettard, and so on. Like there is a “canon” collection. The comparison that keeps coming to mind is Wicca 101 books, that all list out the tools, Sabbats, herbs, and so on. You can only read so many Wicca 101 books or lists of spooky Christmas characters before you can write one yourself in your sleep.

You could say that spooky Christmas characters are a new American Christmas tradition. (How well they relate to these characters from other cultures is, however, up for debate.)

At this point my theory is that after decades of Bing Crosby and Black Friday deals on televisions or what have you, Americans have been craving something different. Now, Christmas-themed horror is nothing new, and neither is Christmas-themed comedy about the chaos the holidays can actually bring (for the former, see Christmas Evil or Black Christmas, and for the latter, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation or A Christmas Story). But I think these things have gotten a second wind of sorts, at least occasionally, in Krampus or Await Further Instructions or Rare Exports (I haven’t seen Await Further Instructions yet but I’m adding it to my list as we speak).

And if it’s scary ghost stories you seek, those are easier than ever to find, from deceased authors and living ones alike. Currently I have made my way through The Haunting Season, The Winter Spirits, More Christmas Ghost Stories, and countless audio renditions on the Chilling Tales for Dark Nights YouTube channel. And I plan to get through dozens of others.

Point being, there is a viable market for creepy Christmas, whether you like capitalism or not (I, personally, could do without it, but I’d like the mashed potatoes NOT passed directly into my face), and I think part of it is routine became rote, and Americans felt a need to do something different for the holidays. And now they can.

Tomten Takeover Followup

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A point I forgot to mention in my last post (partially because it occurred to me after I clicked “publish”) is that while yes, we in the US are getting sick of the same old saccharine nonsense for the holiday season, the only way the culture seems to know how to express that feeling is through consumption. In Sweden, the tomte sets up shop at a farmhouse all year round, but gets a day off around Christmas time, with a meal supplied by the family. In the US, they’re treated like a Christmas-themed decoration, like Elf on the Shelf in a different coat of paint. (One day I might get to Elf on the Shelf…) Alpine demon Krampus, who follows St. Nicolas around and works with/under the Saint, punishing bad kids so Nick doesn’t get his hands dirty. In the US, his chicanery is moved to Christmas and used to sell movie tickets. (Krampus is a yearly rewatch for me, strictly on Dec. 5th (Krampusnacht), but the action is set around Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.)

Christmas overall is a consumerist nightmare, with untold costs between Black Friday and Boxing Day that better folks than me have been able to enumerate and articulate. And white America especially is absolutely no stranger to sticking price tags on cultural artifacts from anywhere else within reach (ask just about any minority group in the country, cultural appropriation is NOT a new discussion).

However, I personally have found it telling that about the same time the pagan types are talking about what some call “The Storm” (this guy has a whole series of posts on the topic and they’re all great, including one about the tides of magic), we start seeing these things in specific. The Tomten, the Krampus movies, and it seems to me, it’s easier and easier to find books and articles about Yuletide traditions elsewhere (it’s the same ones, too, as if they’re being sold to the uninformed consumer like so many Wicca 101 books). And we just slapped a price tag on it all.

The Tomten Takeover Continues

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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.