By Heather Kittle
Holidays are just around the corner which means it’s time for seasonal traditions. We tend to all have some form of tradition we do every year, whether we realize it or not. They can be based on your culture, your religious belief, or just something silly you started doing one year and just keep doing it every season.
For instance, in places like Austria and Slovenia, there’s the Krampus festival. A festival where individuals dress up as Krampus, a horned humanlike figure who scares children who misbehave during Christmas, and then parade themselves up and down the streets in front of spectators. The origin of Krampus is largely unknown but is believed to pre-exist Christianity. In an effort to preserve the culture associated with Krampus, festivals started popping up in many places during the late 20th century, becoming more popular as time went on, giving us what we have today.
For most American citizens, Christmas is associated with the birth of Jesus, thus making it a largely religious holiday. But many traditions we have today that center around the secular holiday didn’t get their start there. An example of this is the Christmas tree, something many religious and non-religious individuals put up and decorate every year. The Christmas tree experience alone varies from family to family, many times creating new traditions of their own. Many different religions and cultures have used evergreen to decorate during the cold winter months, typically in celebration of the winter solstice, happening every year on December 21 or 22. To some pagans, it would represent the coming spring, as the evergreen stays green all year.
For those in Japan, KFC has become a traditional Christmas dinner. That’s right, the Colonel’s chicken with the 11 secret spices has become a staple in many Japanese households as a traditional holiday dinner. But you better preorder or else you’ll be standing in line for hours for that bucket of crispy chicken. It began in 1974 and took off more in the mid-1980s, which was largely due to the western influence after World War II, and the rapid growth of the country during that time period. Because Christmas is considered more of a secular holiday, and less than 1% of the Japanese population identifies as Christian, this is a tradition that grew largely due to good advertising and new experiences rather than centuries-old beliefs.
Whether your tradition runs so deep that you can’t even remember where or why it began, is around to try and preserve history, or something that just caught on and stuck around, traditions (whether holiday-related or not) are something important to cherish for as long as possible, as long as they cause no harm to others. I believe it’s human nature to want to feel included and part of something bigger than us, and with traditions, this makes it possible to do so without even realizing it.
Interested in attending a Krampus Festival in the United States? Check out this site to find one close to you!
