Krampus is a European Christmas demon that serves as the opposite of Santa Claus. For children, Santa Claus, or Father Christmas or St. Nicholas, was the carrot and Krampus was the stick. But why should kids have all the fun? Krampus was never really much of a thing in the United States, as if we let the legend drop in the ocean as Europeans immigrated to the States. Or maybe the Protestants who didn't celebrate St. Nicholas Day left Krampus behind when they moved the St. Nicholas traditions to Christmas. But most likely, it's just that Krampus wasn't all that well known outside of the Alpine region until relatively recent times. Of course, once we had the internet, the Krampus legend spread and grew exponentially, as anything as weird and fun as a Christmas monster is bound to do. -via Boing Boing
Read more about Krampus in many previous Neatorama posts.