Most of us have Christmas traditions we share with our friends and families during the holiday season. While some customs are pretty normal, others might seem a bit bizarre to the average outsider. While you might think it’s wacky that Uncle Mike dresses up his truck like Rudolph every year, or a little weird that Aunt Betty wears the same ugly Christmas sweater for a week prior to the big day, those behaviors pale in comparison to some of the strange things we discovered throughout the rest of the world. Some of these Christmas customs are downright scary!
Christmas Traditions that Are a Little Scary
Ah Christmas. A time for generosity, bonding, and scaring the daylights out of all of the little kids- wait a second here- WHAT?? Now before you go thinking that we must have mixed up our holidays, keep reading. In Germany and Austria, Santa’s wicked accomplice is said to haunt the streets ready to beat the children who have been naughty.
We think the Catalonians have got that one beat, however. Literally! See, in Catalonia, the tradition of caga tio (defecating log) is practiced. It involves dressing up a log to look like a strange character and placing it on the dining table. Every day, the log is fed nuts, sweets and fruit. On Christmas Eve, the whole family joins in singing Christmas carols and beating the poor log until all of the goodies fall out.
In the Ukraine, Christmas trees are decorated in a way that many Americans might find rather spooky. Residents use fake spider webs and artificial spiders in addition to other decorations and ornaments to deck out their trees. Why creepy spiders? Legend has it that a long time ago, a poor woman was unable to afford to decorate her Christmas tree. On Christmas morning she woke up to find the tree covered in spider webs. As the morning light began to sine on the tree, the webs turned to silver and gold, and she and her children were suddenly rich.
Christmas spirit has a whole new meaning in Norway. Norwegians believe that evil spirits and witches will free themselves from their graves. Supposedly, they arrive on Christmas Eve and steal brooms to fly high in the skies creating havoc and chaos. Sounds a bit like Halloween to us, but who’s judging.
Have you ever heard of such creepy Christmas traditions?
