Hey guys!
I’m in Prague in the Czech Republic and every year here on the Eve of St. Nicholas Day,
which is December 6th, the night before something totally wacky happens
at the Old Town Square here in Prague.
You might have heard of Krampus: a devil with horns?
Krampus, who goes by different names, but who is basically the devil
is an assistant to St. Nicholas and St. Nicholas rewards children who have been good throughout the year.
He gives them presents and candy and different gifts
and, if you’ve been bad, you are put into Krampus’ sack and he drags you to hell.
So whereas in some parts of the world the idea of Santa Claus is this kind of reward
to encourage children to be good so that they get something on the morning of Christmas -
here you don’t just get coal from Santa or nothing from Santa.
No, you get dragged to hell.
I’m just thinking back to being at the mall in North America
and how little kids cry when they see Santa who’s being really nice to them
and how totally different it is for kids here who actually are confronted by a devil who wants to drag them to hell.
It’s a little bit of a different scale for scariness.
We’ve just come from Vienna, Austria where Krampus is actually on the front page of the newspaper
and windowsills had little Krampus figures
and even in bakeries there were Krampus cookies
and St. Nicholas cookies.
And before we came for the Krampus night I was actually told sincerely by a bunch of different people
to be very careful because there’s a lot of drinking that goes on
and people actually do sometimes get beaten
and Krampus carries a whip and actually has whipped people at times.
So there were a lot of police around.
There was kind of a heavy security presence around the Old Town Square in Prague,
but I have to say I have never met a more polite group of Krampuses before.
I mean I haven’t met that many but
I went up to them and asked if I could have a photo.
They were very polite.
The whole concept of there being a devil to discourage kids from being bad
is controversial, as you can imagine,
and there is some debate about how appropriate it is to scare children into being good all year
and I’m sure it’s different and totally depends on where you are.
But I have to say, here in Prague, I didn’t see any kids being scared.
Krampus was very nice and the kids would go up and talk to St. Nicholas which was very sweet
and they also went up and talked to the devil in the exact same way.
There was one woman who actually did seem legitimately scared.
She was, like, covering her face like this and screaming and her whole groups of friends was screaming
and so two of the Krampuses were kind of having a bit of fun and pretended to drag her away
and they were messing up her hair and she was screaming the whole time
and then one of the St. Nicholas guys came up with his staff
and sort of intervened to free her from the Krampuses.
But, for the most part, they were super polite and nice
and even offered to take photos with us.
So I…I was prepared for there to be a lot more mayhem than there actually was.
In Prague, as we were walking to the Old Town Square, looking for Krampus
you could see all of these people - kids and adults - who were wearing horns.
Some of them lit up.
Other people were wearing like different toques that looked like Krampus horns
and it almost has, like, a Halloween vibe to it so it’s almost like a Halloween-Christmas type of celebration
where people dress up and it’s scary but it’s also exciting.
St. Nicholas Day is December 6th, or here in Czech Republic it’s called Mikuláš,
and that is when kids wake up and they find candy or treats hidden in their shoes.
Sometimes it’s in a bag, hidden somewhere in their room.
But, either way, they are given candy on December 6th
and it really signifies the beginning of Christmas which is now just around the corner.
As the trio of St. Nicholas, the devil, and an angel were leaving the Old Square in Prague
we were kind of walking behind them and it was so funny because
they must’ve been hungry from their night of rewarding and punishing children
because they pulled off the road and stepped in for a late night snack.
This definitely has to be one of the most out there Christmas traditions I’ve ever heard of.
Leave a comment down below.
Tell me what you think of this Krampus devil tradition.
I hope that you guys enjoyed this video.
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and I’ll see you in my next video.
Bye!