German Christmas Characters Look a Lot Like Other Cultures' Evil Villains

The melding of holiday traditions is a wonderful thing to see.

It is not unusual these days to see marriages bringing together people of entirely differing origins, whether that be of country, region, language, or ethnic background.

Every kind of festive tradition is represented in these households, including those that can only be classified in the F drawer of the filing cabinet, under Folklore/Germanic, Fables/European, or Flat/Loony.

The Europeans have always had a darker view of the world, and where we in the States have Santa and his sleigh, the pile of packages under the Christmas tree, caroling parties up and down the neighborhood, and cookie contests at work, they, the Europeans I mean, have a rich history of fabled Christmas characters who specialize in what you might call anti-Christmas activities.

As a general rule names are a problem to the non-German born, seeing as how they can best be represented as a freight train carrying nothing but consonants that has unaccountably left the track and spilled the cargo at random, and people are going around picking up letters and putting them willy-nilly in order.

If the language current at the epic time of The Naming of Things hadn’t yet invented vowels, well, so be it.

They will make do with a clutch of k’s, h’s, t’s, g’s, and syllabic mash-ups like rckgtch.

It is to the best of my recall that one of the characters that populate German holiday tales has doubled down on the consonant thing and goes by the moniker of Herr Chrchtchrcht.

What does this Herr Chrchtchrcht bring to the party? What is his special contribution? What is his unique charm?

He is perhaps a woodland elf, or a fond forest animal peeking in the living room window while the children are singing around the Christmas tree, and leaving a present in the snow or the like?

Well, you would think so, or something like it, this Chrchtchrcht fellow being a Christmassy sort and all.

But in this reasonable assumption you would be mistaken.

No, Herr Chrchtchrcht, I think I’ve got this right, sneaks into bad children’s bedrooms on Christmas Eve and snips off a toe or two and eats them.

If you were disobedient, or by extension, unruly, unhelpful, or undisciplined even once in the preceding year, The Year of Final Judgment so to speak, Herr C is, according to legend, allowed this toe-munching.

More serious offenses, such as untidiness for two entire days straight, poor cursive handwriting, or a crooked mowing line in the back yard lawn, carries with them a more severe, but still just, penalty: an entire foot or a hand is available to him to calm his hunger pangs in the long hours between supper and breakfast.

This is viewed dispassionately, not to say blithely, by the German adults, who see it strictly in business terms, the penalties associated with a deal gone sour or a contract violated.

In temperament a mix of the Frankenstein monster, something from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and a handful of secondary characters from The Living Dead, this supernatural or at least mythic/legendary batch of holiday participants who share holiday duty with Herr Chrchtchrcht do not mix well with others, lack empathy and communication skills, and ‘act out’ their issues in dramatic fashion whenever the mood strikes them.

Others beyond Herr Chrchtchrcht include Grndrgrf who takes the presents back from the tree – actually stealing the gifts in other words – and in the festive spirit of all things Germanic dousing them with kerosene and lighting them in the back yard, and Frau Knckdrf, who, I believe I have this right, poisons the hot chocolate going round, that’s right, poisons the hot chocolate.

Together, these and other holiday creatures of Germanic descent present a full roster of holiday legends whose main occupation and purpose in life, their mission statement you might say, is to bedevil small children and send them into a state of shivering, cowering fear around the holidays.

Not to worry though, this builds discipline the Germans say, and the shivering, cowering fear thing wears off after a couple of decades, six at the most, maybe seven, as long as you start the therapy in the early minutes of infancy.

It is a little hard to see why these guys and gals are still around, in other words, why they are so warmly cherished by the German people themselves.

Perhaps it is the entirely human desire to see others go through much the same gauntlet of childhood experiences that they did.

Perhaps it is to drive the fright out of young children until there is none left.

Perhaps, to take it even further, they view these interesting characters as a kind of vaccine that is best to receive in the early innings of life, the better to develop an immunity.

It makes for interesting evenings though, this mix of Santa, Rudolph, and something that better finds a home in The Handbook of Pathological Disorders than around the Christmas tree.

It is not all bad, these traditions, and brings warming news on the employment front.

If you are a monster of some sort or other, perhaps pieced together from the parts of other fine men no longer quite with us, like a car built from used parts from the salvage yard, and you have found your wage-earning prospects dim, take heart: you can always find work as a German Christmas character.

You can walk, or perhaps, lurch, in some cases slither, and in still others leap shrieking from low-lying branches of the backyard trees, right into the welcoming arms of the people who derive these tales over the centuries, and as I think they’d be happy to tell you, the more ogre-esque, repulsive, and demonically anti-social you are the more they think to themselves, “man, we’ve got to get this guy into a Christmas story!”

It is just as well that this is the only night of the year that they all get together, otherwise still newer traditions might emerge.

You know, like the one fellow with the iron pipe, Hans Brchtcht, who kneecaps Santa for keeping an untidy workshop at The North Pole, or Fraulein Schlecght, who takes it upon herself to kill, field dress, and roast Rudolph over a bonfire, perhaps the very bonfire started by the fellow who poured kerosene over the presents, as a lesson to little children who let their red noses get out of hand.

It is enough to send a fellow to bed at night exhausted from trying to take in all the multi-cultural good cheer.

But a word to the wise, be careful up there, and don’t let your hand trail under the bed for too long.

Herr Doktor Krchkch is known to set up shop under there and peel back the fingernails of naughty children who eat too much candy at the festivities downstairs.

You can’t be too careful around German folklore.