God Bless Us Every One

You may have just seen this fun little fellow on the Colbert Report.  It’s Krampus, the Christmas demon that frightens little children into being nice!  As many of you thrift store shoppers probably know, his services are sorely needed at the Village Discount Outlet (especially the one near my house at Lawrence and Kimball).  I learned about Krampus recently on one of my favorite blogs, Morbid Anatomy.  I can’t believe I’ve gone nigh on 30 years celebrating Christmas without discovering this awesome Yuletide mascot!

Which got me to thinking.  What other booze-fueled, pagan, borderline demonic Christmas traditions have I neglected celebrating?  I checked into forgotten Christmas traditions of more bawdy times and found this book, which I promptly bought for my mom:

I revel in anything that goes against the Stewartization of Christmas.  Don’t get me wrong, I idolize Martha in my own way.  Sometimes the idea of a too perfect Christmas gets in the way of my actual enjoyment of the season.  (I feel this same way about weddings.)

Nothing like an abusive Christmas demon to make you feel like it’s not 100% necessary to string all your own garlands.

Here are my two favorite non-crafty, slightly weird, and not-at-all perfectionist Christmas traditions my family revels in each year. 

• Glögg, or mulled wine.  A pot of this is always prepared by noon at whatever Christmas celebration is happening.  Helps the adults get through the childrens’ great unwrapping.
• Hiding the pickle.  An old German Christmas tradition that involves hunting for a pickle-shaped ornament — the one who finds it gets an extra gift from Santa (usually a $20 bill in my family).

So what are your favorite holiday traditions?  The ones that, you know, don’t involve everyone feeling inadequate because they don’t harvest their own holly berries and mistletoe?

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party TOMORROW

BackGarage is taking part in the “Ugly Christmas Sweater” party tomorrow night to celebrate the holidays and raise money for the Greater Chicago Food Depository.  And lots of your other favorite Chicago blogs will be there.

Details: The party is being held at Black Rock Bar tomorrow, Thursday, December 10th starting at 7:00 PM. The party’s free. The drinks are not, though there will be specials.

Libby and I will be there with postcards and promos for The Vintage Bazaar as well.

Help Feed the Hungry: We will be collecting donations (checks STRONGLY preferred) for the Greater Chicago Food Depository at the door.  Suggested donation: $15.

Learn more, RSVP to come, and find out how to spread the word by visiting the official page here. Find us on Facebook over here.

Are you on Twitter? Follow the conversation about tomorrow’s party on Twitter at #chisweaterbash

Other sites doing it:

Meet Chicago Bloggers in Ugly Sweaters

Join us next Thursday for a very special Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

We’re throwing an “Ugly Christmas Sweater” party next Thursday evening to celebrate the holidays, and we’re teaming up with several other great sites to pull it off in style.

Details: The party is being held at Black Rock Bar on Thursday, December 10th starting at 7:00 PM. The party’s free. The drinks are not, though there will be specials. Bring yourself, your friends, and the ugliest Christmas sweater you can find. Come meet other BackGarage readers as well as dozens of other interesting Chicagoans from across the city.

Learn more, RSVP to come, and find out how to spread the word by visiting the official page here.

We’re teaming up with several other great local sites to make the night one to remember.  Here they are.  Check them out this weekend to learn a whole lot more about what’s happening in Chicago.

Our Co-Sponsors:

Draining of Hot Water Tank

I found this — actually, it was a stack of 6 of these dating back to 1977 — while listing some of the stuff I recently bought at an estate sale on Etsy.

I know some people have aversions to digging around in other people’s homes and therefore avoid estate sales.  They don’t like the idea of picking over a dead person’s stuff.  (Even though, I contend, most estates being sold belong to the living en route to Florida.)

But I like it.  I like sorting through people’s lives.  I like imagining who they might’ve been, where they were employed, what their interests were, what unrealized goals they had.

A seemingly meaningless scrap like this tells you so much about the person who lived there.

I like knowing that the stuff in my shop belonged to someone who took meticulous notes on draining the water heater.  This particular sheet encompasses the time period in which I, and most of my friends, were born.