Christmas Krampus

I’m not quite sure how to do this so I will quote P on this one. A while ago he was telling us about this holiday they have here in Graz and he said something along the lines of “It’s this holiday where people dress up as devils and beat children and girls that scream too much.” (Sorry if I misquoted you P but this was in like October) Amazingly that is kind of what it was.
Don’t get me wrong this was like one of the coolest things I have ever seen, but as part of Christmas here they have the Krampus celebration (which happens on the 5^th of Dec) where the devils come and they beat the children that are not being good. Then Santa comes to the good ones on the 24^th. It is a pretty cool celebration and they have a parade to celebrate it, so guess where I was this evening! It was fantastic! All of these people were dressed in these amazing costumes. N (from England) kept saying it was like a horror film. The people dressed up came from all over and each group sort of had a different theme. For the first time ever I think I took more photos then M (my roommate). We started out behind this lady with a baby carriage, but then she left so I ended up right at the front, which I guess means that I am getting nothing for Christmas, cause one of the Krampus smacked me in the face!! It was just completely amazing.
Afterwards we just walked around the Christmas markets with E & P, M(from Finland), N & her mom and mom’s boyfriend.  The markets are a lot of fun!! (The fact that there is a different type of Gluwein at each one had nothing to do with it, I promise! ;P ) Now home to type this up and load the photos!
A much happier,

Tiny

PS Apparently when you are a Ling major you are not allowed to make spelling mistakes (hello I work with the IPA (not the proper alphabet), M, deal with it!! J)
PSS Auntie B I have the recepie for the Finnish Blueberry pie now!!

This is the meeting place that we
always go to in the Hauptplatz

I think even Hollywood would be jealous of some
of these ones.

They had bells on their butts so
they also made weird sounds

I'm pretty sure this is the one that hit me,
I have over 200 photos of the parade!

Creepy glowing eyes

More creepy

He has glowing horns

This guy was a little tired!