But over the last century or so the stick has disappeared from the carrot-and-stick approach to Christmas.
Kids had something to think about, something at stake, Christmas bounty wasn’t automatic. Not too long ago, the naughty list of Santa Claus actually meant something: if kids misbehaved they were punished for their misdeeds by being given the dreaded lump of coal, or at least denied longed-for presents from Santa. And while the punisher of naughty kids has been terrorizing Germanic Europe for centuries, even millennia, he is now suddenly running rampant across the US in feature films, on TV ( Grimm, Supernatural, Colbert Report, American Dad), in comics and novels, and at various gatherings, balls, and runs. The ancient Alpine demon-thing comes equipped with horns, fangs, claws, unruly fur, hooves, long creepy tongue and wields chains, whips, switches, and bells. You can’t swing a dead furry demon these days without smacking into Krampus, the dark shadow to the bright light of St.
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