The Atlas Obscura Guide to the World's Strangest Christmas Traditions

Every European Christmas market sells the same mulled wine out of the same wooden hut. This is not a criticism — it is a very good hut, and the wine is warm. But it is not a reason to choose one country over another, and the "best Christmas markets" lists that dominate December travel writing are, functionally, lists of interchangeable huts. The traditions are the opposite. They are wildly, specifically local, they happen on fixed dates, and most of them are considerably darker than the season's reputation suggests. Several involve being eaten. What follows is organized by what you actually want to see, with the dates, because these are the rare travel plans where showing up on the wrong day means seeing nothing at all. Krampus, Austria and Bavaria: chased through the street by a demon Krampus is Saint Nicholas's counterpart: the one who deals with the children on the other list. The figure has deep Alpine roots, but its modern shape came from somewhere more specific — Atlas Obscura's account of what Krampus actually is traces it to the 16th-century Counter-Reformation, when Jesuit plays in Bavaria and Tyrol put an impersonated devil on stage alongside St. Nicholas for the first t…