In some places he's Farmhand Ruprecht, in some he's Pelznickel, Pelzebock or Schmutzli Samichlaus or any of a dozen other names. Throughout the Germanic world, he is Santa's servant who makes the rounds with him, doling out punishments to the naughty children while Santa hands out presents to the good ones. Most of these traditions make it clear that Ruprecht is Santa's servant (in the Netherlands he is Black Peter and is quite explicitly a Moorish slave of Santa) while maintaining the good cop - bad cop dynamic that concentrates all the horrifying aspects in the servant while allowing the Master to maintain his saintly, jolly character.
My favorite version of all is the Austrian Krampus, who looks pretty much like your standard-issue devil. He is depicted carrying a rod or a switch in one hand and a sack over his shoulder, and is usually festooned with chains. The sight of Father Christmas (depicted in many of these places as a Catholic bishop with a tall pointy hat and long flowing vestments) strolling down the street next to Beelzebub is synonymous with the season in many parts of the world.
In olden times, when this pair showed up at the door on St. Nicholas' Day children would be asked to perform for them; They would be asked to do a trick, a little song, or a dance. If they performed well, Santa gave them treats. If they performed poorly or if Santa had inside information that they'd been bad little children throughout the year, Krampus would give them a good switching. Particularly naughty children, it was rumored, would be thrown into his sack and carried away. It was primarily the threat of this sort of action that was used to encourage good behavior, and in some regions this may have actually taken the form of the local priest dressing in the traditional Christmas garb and, armed with the parents' reports on the child's behavior, threatening recalcitrant children with rod-beatings.
In more modern times, this appears to have evolved into parents giving children sticks ( the universal symbol of an impending ass-whupping) on St. Nicholas' Day and warning them that if their behavior didn't improve by Christmas, it'd be beatings and potentially the sack for them. The terrifying visage of Krampus would still have been fresh in their credulous little minds, having been duly reinforced the night before (St. Nicholas' Eve) during the Krampus festival, wherein local ruffians were encouraged to dress in costume, drag chains through the streets, make lots of noise and generally do their best impersonation of Santa's Vengeful Minions of Darkness. Add "drunken" to that description and you probably begin to get a picture of what it looked like in practice. So the period between St. Nicholas' Eve and Christmas thus became known throughout the Germanic world as the time of year when children's behavior was at its very best. History remains mute on whether their song-and-dance routines were at their most polished in anticipation of one of those door-to-door auditions, but it certainly brings a smile to one's face to recall those wistful yuletide seasons of yesteryear when little children might be commanded to "Dance for Santa!" or face swift and violent reprisals.
This all might seem a little weird to us, but my theory is that festivals and holidays are expressions of a culture's everyday priorities, and those cultures placed a high value on scaring the hell out of children in order to instill good behavior. Krampus' not-coincidental resemblance to Lucifer adds an additional layer of eternal damnation to the equation, but it's worth noting that depictions of the devil were everywhere in the church from medieval times on, and they certainly weren't shy about emphasizing the dire consequences of Straying From God's Path even while extolling the kind and loving virtues of God's Boundless Forgiveness. In light of that fact, this particular tradition probably didn't seem unduly macabre.
In the U.S., the current popular depiction of Santa is widely credited as originating in a series of Coca-Cola ads.
Posted by flamingbanjo at December 22, 2004 05:09 PMI had been given to understand that the modern depiction of Santa Claus is generally thought to have originated with Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem "T'was The Night Before Christmas" (although recently his authorship has come into dispute), and evolved through the remainder of the century into more-or-less what we know today.
The Coca-Cola ads of the 1920's solidified the image of the jolly, ruddy-faced Santa in the minds of most Americans, and its popularity as an advertising icon probably is as responsible as anything else for beginning the association of Christmas with unbridled consumerism.
Posted by: KING COMTE I at December 24, 2004 09:17 AMI rather enjoyed _The Cute and the Cool_, which is generally about the last couple hundred years' of US projection onto childhood; the morphing holidays are a regualr sub-subject.
Posted by: clew at December 24, 2004 12:08 PMClew, what does "rois faineants" mean? Just curious.
Yeah, I've noticed this weird dichotomy in our culture's view of children. On one hand, protecting them is the most commonly proffered argument for censorship and a host of other really bad ideas. I had a mother tell me that she heard Tom Leykis on her car radio and was apalled that such material would be permitted to go out over public airwaves because, after all, her kid might have been in the car when mom scanned through the stations and would thus have been forced to hear three seconds of potentially offensive material, which mom would've then had to explain. So basically parents should be able to randomly surf through all of the hundreds of broadcast channels available and be guaranteed that they won't hear anything that would offend or confuse a five-year-old. First amendment be damned, my daughter's innocence is at stake here! As I recall, she stormed off in a huff when I framed her argument in those terms, because what right did a non-breeding person like me have to question her right to protect her child?
Not that Tom Leykis isn't an idiot. But still...
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that advertisers view children as a desirable marketing segment due to their special access to Mom and Dad's disposable income (which must, as you point out, be used to Enhance their Child's Experience of the Wonder of their Formative Years) as well as their relative lack of critical thinking abilities. So a company like say, Disney can claim to be protecting childrens' innocence while simultaneously marketing to them aggressively.
And don't even get me started on the whole Britney Spears/Olsen Twins/ Pop-Tart-Du-Jour Jailbait Taboo marketing strategy...
On an unrelated note: Merry Christmas! Happy Festivus!
Posted by: flamingbanjo at December 25, 2004 11:28 AM