In Major Shift, German Christmas Characters Reclassified as Horror Monsters

It took several centuries of consumer feedback, but the German culture has decided that a major reshuffling is in order regarding some of their most beloved or at least most-feared holiday cutups.

“It just became too much to ignore,” says Herr Doktor Krnstskt, he vowel-deprivileged Director of Folklore Studies at the University of Heidelberg which decides such matters.

“I mean we had characters at Christmas biting off the fingers and toes at the first joint of children who had been bad the previous year. The infractions were serious, mind you – poor penmanship, not putting their toys away, or a crooked lawn mowing line in the back yard. Still, the punishment seemed excessive considering these characters were meant to celebrate the spirit of Christmas.”

Others include Frau 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 Tante Knckdrf, who poisons the hot chocolate going round, that’s right, poisons the hot chocolate.

“We had to get these characters into the right category – Horror, Monster – before next thing you know one of them with an iron pipe will kneecap 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,” reiterated Herr Doktor Krnstskt.

“We can all agree that the purpose of these holiday creatures of Germanic descent, is to bedevil small children and send them into a state of shivering, cowering fear around the holidays and presumably for the rest of their lives. But we were running into the problem of kids not expressing customary fear at monsters when they showed up in books and movies, the children mistook then for Christmas characters.”