December 21, 2006
A Different Christmas Story
I've told y'all about Cuz. She's also Carmen's mom. (Just so you have the full connection) Well, her long time boyfried, Jerry, was born in Czechoslovakia. WE were chatting on the phone tonite talking about Christmas traditions and such, when he shared the following story.
He was a young boy back in Czecho in the 60's. Not many folks were fond of Santa Claus. In their culture he was Father Frost and came from Siberia. Being as Russia wasn't terribly popular at the time, the cold war and all, folks just kind of ignored the big guy.
But they did celebrate St. Nicholas Day.
Seems on St. Nicholas Day, St. Nicholas, dressed in Pope like robes, and the Devil, complete with horns and a tail, would come to the door.
If you were good, St Nicholas would give you candy. If you were bad, the devil would give you coal and sometimes even a spanking.
Now, I gotta tell you folks, if I had been threatened with a spanking from the devil as a child I would have made much more of an effort to be good. Ok, maybe not, but the thought would have been there.
Plus, this is kinda like a Two-fer. Two holidays all wrapped up in one. Halloween AND Christmas!!!
Anyway - I just thought that was a great story. I love to hear about other Christmas traditions.
Posted by Tammi at December 21, 2006 05:07 AM | TrackBackSo...
what exactly would the gender of this devil be? what all would she be wearing during said spanking? Was there a safe word?
Posted by: RSM at December 21, 2006 10:54 AMWhen I was I kid I would have probably gotten Littlejoe and our blogless bro Jay together and took Ol' Scratch out with baseball bats.
The reasoning would be A) He'd be coming for all three of us and B) Taking out Satan's kneecaps with a Louisville Slugger would HAVE to offset at least most of the stuff we did...
most of it...
Posted by: Maranda Rites at December 23, 2006 02:37 PM