Usually, all the awesome stuff I dig up here has been considered awesome for years, decades, centuries. But this is something that just caught fire in the last few weeks. I think I was aware of this before, but suddenly, I’m seeing references to it just about everywhere. What is it? We’re talking about the black sheep of the Christmas holiday — the Krampus!

Okay, fine, what’s the Krampus? It’s a Christmas legend, most common in Germany, Austria, and the Alps, about a monstrous creature who is a companion of St. Nicholas — where St. Nick brings presents to good children, the Krampus brings punishment to bad ones, usually, around December 5th of every year. He carries a bundle full of switches, and he’s sometimes depicted carrying bad children away.

In other words, he’s Incongruous Christmas Monster, complete with horns, obscenely long tongue, chains, bells, and the whole shebang. He’s such a badass that he hangs around a Christian saint — and no one can make him go away!

And Bill O’Reilly can’t even complain that Krampus is doing anything against Christmas! It’s not like he just showed up all of a sudden and started getting Christmas all monstered up — he’s been scaring waste fluids out of kids in the Alps every December for centuries! Bill O’Reilly better keep his distance from the Krampus anyway — he’s got way more fearmongering experience than the Falafel-Master…

And the Krampus isn’t just a feature in old artwork and legends — Christmas festivals in Germany will often include people who dress up in monster costumes and walk among the crowds along with St. Nicholas. Can you imagine that happening at a Christmas parade in America? “Merry Christmas, kids! Now here’s GWAR!“

I think that’s why Krampus is so awesome — it’s like taking Christmas and adding a heaping spoonful of PURE HEAVY METAL. Even the name — KRAMPUS — sounds like a heavy metal band, doesn’t it?

So hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve, filled with all the Christmas goodness you can get your hands on — and with extra helpings of Krampus Awesomeness.