Nikolaus (and some scary photos)

Saturday we went to the ‘a bit like Bunnings’ shop and bought a real Christmas Tree and some trimmings.  I never thought I’d have a purple decorated Christmas Tree, but as much as I wanted to decorate our apartment with all the traditional natural Christmas decorations that are so common here, shopping around for them takes too much time (and doesn’t work so well with kinder in tow) and they are a bit more expensive, so I let Amelia choose the decorations, and purple it was!!  We played some Christmassy tunes and spent the afternoon putting it all together and I have to say I think it’s actually the prettiest little Xmas tree we’ve had!!   It’s modest, and a bit fat around the middle and skinny on top, but that’s what you get with ‘natural’!  Maciek was determined to go chop one down himself but I wouldn’t allow it on account of angry farmers shooting at him!

At the beginning of December each village hosts the arrival of ‘Nikolaus’, the Austrian Santa.  There are stalls in the village centre selling food and the delicious Gluhwein, and at the one we went to here in Kirchdorf, there was a wooden tripod holding a cauldron of fire, sitting atop a mound of snow, where the witches were hanging about (hey, it’s a different culture, right?).  Nikolaus comes dressed more like a red and white bishop than the Santa we know, flanked by six little girls dressed as angels.  There’s traditional music played by live musicians in the Musikpavilion, and Nikolaus walks through the crowd greeting all the kinder before handing out little bags of treats.  The treats include peanuts and walnuts (in the shells), a mandarin, a piece of ginger cake, a small chocolate bar.  It’s very sweet, something very simple and oldy-worldy about it.  It starts at about 5pm so it’s dark, and very cold.  The tradition here is that all the good children are visited by Nikolaus, but if you have been naughty, then the ‘devils’ come after you.  They are called Krampus, and they are teenage boys dressed up in the most terrifying costumes!  Honestly, the week leading up to these little festivals, there were a few ‘devils’ knocking around town just popping up in random places.  We encountered some on our way back to the car from gymnastics class, with a group of teenage girls, just hanging around, and as soon as I saw them my legs went to jelly!  People have been telling us about this for months.  It’s fantastic to see, they said, but really scary.  They whip your legs with a bunch of sticks tied together like a big witches broom and it really hurts, they told us.  Don’t stay with the kids, let the kids see Nikolaus, then leg it, they told us.  So we were there with our friends, Amelia says she’s not scared, it’s just boys dressed up, it’s not real.  So we hung around a bit, not really sure what to do, or how long after Nikolaus left they’d come out.  I saw a large group of people standing on the lit ramp leading to the library, lots of families with children, so I went there thinking it’s a safe place, they won’t come near here with all these kids.  Plus around the bonfire was a barrier, so we assumed they would stay in there, as they do in other villages we were told.  How wrong was I.  Suddenly the music went from calm lovely Christmas to raging heavy metal and all this smoke appeared and all these middle sized devils came stomping out.  Within the barriers at first, phew I thought, safe up here.  But then they started to stomp through the crowd, and to my horror up the ramp where all the children were!  Amelia watched, not bothered, just boys, she said, in costumes.  It only lasted about 5 minutes and I thought, that wasn’t too bad, okay then, let’s go.  But then the music became louder, more smoke, and the sound of a chainsaw!  And the ‘big’ really terrifying ones appeared.  They wear chains and big bells on the costumes so they even sound really terrifying, and the costumes stink like real wild animals.  We stayed put, like statues, don’t make eye contact, and they won’t notice we’re here.  Amelia’s face buried into my belly!  They were really aggressive too, going at teenagers mostly, one of them had a boy of about 14 cornered against the wall, whipping him over and over again.  The look on the boys face was pure terror.  As soon as the excitement started to die down, we legged it!  A little too late.  We feel like the worst parents in the world!  My friend told me that she was at the shopping centre that day and a group of them turned up, during the day.  Everyone was screaming and kids were crying.  We heard the next day that a 13 year old girl was beaten so badly she ended up with broken bones.  I asked why it’s allowed to continue like that, and my friend said, because it’s tradition.  I guess in some societies nothing can shake it.  I just have to remember what I learnt on Contiki all those years ago, it’s not wrong, it’s just different, but in this case, i think it's at least a little bit wrong!   At least we have something to threaten the kids with if they misbehave!  Not really, wouldn’t dream of it, the model parents that we are!