Pooping logs, surveillance state elves and other odd Christmas traditions

As joyful as they can be, the holidays tend to bring out the weird side of people too, and that’s not to mention the fact that many people around the world have traditions that may seem odd to the average American.

Here are some of the strangest Christmas traditions around the globe.

Elf on the Shelf

It started as a rhyming children’s book that no publisher wanted. Now, in just over over a decade, it’s become a multimedia phenomenon that has generated millions of dollars in revenue. But along the way, the Elf on the Shelf has attracted plenty of criticism.

For those unaware of the hottest holiday trend among young families, the Elf on the Shelf refers to a elf doll that acts as a scout for Santa, as parents tell their children. Each night, the elf flies to the North Pole and reports on the children’s behavior to the big man, only to return each morning in a new position in the house. If any child touches the elf, the being’s magic will go away.

The picture book accompanying each doll has sold 8 million copies, costing roughly $30 each, as of early December, per The Today Show, but researchers and cultural critics alike have called the product “creepy.”

Education professor Laura Pinto co-authored a paper suggesting that the elf helped to “normalize” the surveillance state and was unhealthy for children’s development because it cannot be touched and played with. Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak said she had “dreamed of killing” her family’s elf. Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams called the product a “judgmental little voyeur.” Kate Tuttle of The Atlantic said her friends’ kids found it “scary.”

None of that matters for millions of enthusiastic elf devotees, who have given the product a high rating on Amazon and devoted whole Pinterest pages to elaborate hiding places and reveals for their respective elves.

Krampus

Speaking of creepy, there’s Krampus, the horned demon spirit that beats children who’ve been naughty. For a long time, Krampus was a relatively obscure tradition in America, kept alive by families of German descent, according to National Geographic. As legend had it, Krampus would visit towns the night before Dec. 6, the feast of Saint Nicholas, and whip evil children with sticks before dragging them down into the underworld.

But shortly after the turn of the century, Krampus became cool. He appeared on popular TV shows like The Colbert Report. He inspired a parade in Washington D.C. He even got a major Hollywood movie about him.

In eastern Europe, where Krampus originated, there are still “Krampus runs” and parades each year, which usually involve drunk men dressing up and chasing people on the street, per The Mirror.

Beer and cookies

In America, the usual food left out for Santa each year is milk and cookies, sometimes with some carrots for his reindeer. But that’s not the same around the world, according to The Daily Meal.

In Australia, children usually leave cold beer for Saint Nick. In the United Kingdom, it’s typically mince pie and sherry. Irish young people offer one of their country’s most famous products: Guinness. In Sweden, the tradition is a cup of coffee.

In France and the Netherlands, however, the reindeer are the ones who receive goodies, usually in the form of water, carrots and hay.

KFC

Just one percent of Japan’s 127 million people are Christian, but the Christmas holiday is still widely celebrated there. In particular, the Japanese love to eat the chicken of Colonel Sanders to commemorate the day, according to ABC News. Seriously. People make their Christmas orders at KFC two months in advance.

The fast food chain’s wild popularity is due to a massively successful marketing campaign started in the 1970s as the restaurant positioned itself to capture a huge market that celebrates Christmas as a non-religious holiday, according to The Smithsonian Magazine.

The marketing campaign’s tagline, “Kentucky for Christmas,” stuck in such a big way that it’s now a tradition for families to share “Christmas chicken” each year.

Tió de Nadal

In the Catalonia region of Spain, children participate in a tradition that has, for obvious reasons, never become a worldwide phenomenon like Santa.

In essence, Catalan children take a hollow log, prop it up on two small sticks in the front and draw a face on the front. From Dec. 8 to Dec. 24, the children must feed the log and cover it with a blanket to keep it warm, according to Slate.

Then, on Christmas Eve, the children gather round the log and sing a special song while hitting it with sticks. If the children took good care of the log, they will find candy or presents that the log has pooped out under its blanket, according to Cracked.

Yes, pooped out.

The exact translation of the song the children sing is as follows:

Poop, log,

Poop nougats,

Hazelnuts and cottage cheese,

If you don't poop well,

I'll hit you with a stick,

Poop, log!

And that’s not the only fecal-related Christmas tradition in Catalonia, which includes the city of Barcelona. There is also a key figure in each Catalan Nativity scene: Caganer.

Caganer is a figurine, typically of a man, with his pants around his ankles defecating while the birth of Jesus takes place nearby. The Caganer is supposedly a symbol of fertility and necessary to procure a good harvest, according to Time. In 2005, the city of Barcelona removed the figurine from its official city Nativity scene, according to The Culture Trip. There was such a local outcry that the city reinstated “the pooper” (which Caganer translates to) the next year.

Happy Holidays!

This story was originally published December 18, 2016 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Pooping logs, surveillance state elves and other odd Christmas traditions."