I’m quite intrigued by Christmas traditions.

But I feel these are being lost as every year Christmas becomes a Supermarket Sweep challenge to see how much you can buy in as short a space of time as possible.

Clearly this commercialisation of Christmas has increased drip by drip over the years. People get into hundreds of pounds of debt for what is essentially one day. The celebration itself is of the birth of Jesus – an aspect that is forgotten under the pressures of Christmas lists, must-have buys, £30 stocking fillers, drunkenness and extreme gluttony. In the modern world what does Christmas celebrate? Abundance?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas as much as anyone – who can’t love all the glitter, sparkle and a tub of Quality Street?

But I think it might be good idea to take a step back and perhaps hit the “reset to factory settings” button. This commercialisation of the holiday is unsustainable.

I recently watched the Netflix Christmas movie, Klaus, which is great BTW, but the bit that stuck with me was the scene where one horrible little boy did not get a present from Nick because of his behaviour.

We all know about Santa’s naughty and nice list but how many children these days are not given presents because of their behaviour. Today it’s irrelevant … it’s Christmas.

This got me thinking of older traditions – and today is the tradition of Krampus.

December 5 is Krampusnacht – the night before the day of Saint Nicholas – both days celebrated in central Europe including Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, Northern Italy, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Krampus is an ugly critter; half-goat, half-demon with fangs and a long tongue.  

His sole role is to punish children who have misbehaved whereas good children will get pressies on December 6 as a reward from Saint Nicholas.

Krampus carries birch wood (ruten) to whip naughty children and chains to drag them away, he even has a basket to put them in – he really doesn’t mess about.

The birch branches are often associated with pagan Wiccan rituals and the chains are thought to be associated with early Christian traditions of binding the devil.

Although he is a terrifying creature, since the 19th century krampuskarten (Krampus cards) are exchanged with images of Krampus looming over naughty kiddies or chasing buxom ladies. The images of Krampus himself have become cuter in style as time as progressed.

On Krampusnacht Krampus will appear on the streets visiting homes and businesses. Where he finds evidence of naughty children he leaves coal and bundles of ruten or birch branches as a warning.

On this night there are often Krampusnacht parades across central Europe and even some places in the USA, where people dress as Krampus and chase children – all in a nice controlled environment.

It’s also traditional to offer Krampus a schnapps as a means of placating him – for me this lessens the evil a bit if an Archers and Lemonade would chill him out.  

Like Saint Nicholas, Krampus comes from a pre-Christian pagan tradition but only seems to have been paired with Saint Nick in the 17th century creating the perfect balance of good vs evil, positive and negative, ying vs yang.

The idea that you are rewarded for good behaviour is a wonderful one, but if there is no alternative for bad behaviour surely it dilutes this reward.

I don’t think for one minute we should try to terrify kids with tales of Krampus but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to teach them about responsibility for their own actions and that every action carries consequences.

Good actions are rewarded whereas bad actions are not. This has always been part of the Christmas message but it is lost with Christmas being solely about ‘stuff’ and not about behaviour. Santa never leaves a child out – regardless of his naughty list.

So why not do something extraordinary this Christmas and feel that you earned those gifts under the tree, or at least earned that chilled Archers and Lemonade.