December 4th: KRAMPUS, BITCHES!!!!
Because today is the day of the KRAMPUS MOVIE!!!!! WOOOOOT!
Tag Archive: christmas
December 3rd: Yeah yeah yeah…
It is Wednesday December 14, 2011. 11 days until Christmas. By this time, I would have made six dozen jars of jams/jellies, at least 4 batches each of marshmallows and other candies, decorated 15 gift boxes, put up and decorated the tree, put lights on the house, and wrapped at least 4 presents. This year’s tally?
- Dozens of jars of jelly: 1.5
- Batches of marshmallows: 1
- Other candy made: 1
- Light on the house: front and back porch
- Gift boxes decorated: Zero.
- Trees erected and decorated: one broken 3 foot tree with one strand of lights.
- Presents wrapped: Zilch.
I have done nothing this year. I’m having trouble getting into the mood because I HAVE NO KITCHEN. Because I have no kitchen, I can’t put up the tree because the tree goes into the dining room which is currently being worked on. This also means I can’t make anything. The only jellies and candy created was to take up to relatives during Thanksgiving before the kitchen got destroyed. I haven’t wrapped anything (it’s all in a pile on the futon. Boxes and bags all over the goddamn place). Why? we usually use the garage table (8ftx6ft) as space. Can’t do that because the garage holds the kitchen. The stove, microwave, sink, and everything in every cabinet ever. My home does not feel like Christmas. It feels and smells of panic and chaos.
PANIC AND CHAOS.
T-minus 11 days.
Why don’t we have The Krampus? Seriously. When the Americans were cherry picking Christmas traditions from the Europeans, why did they leave out Krampus? Yeah, he’s kinda scary looking, but fucking hell. He serves a purpose! 
Look at that motherfucker! Do you know why he’s linked to Christmas? He’s what shows up when you’re a bad kid. Not “Santa brings you shitty presents or coal”, not “Santa won’t bring you shit”. Oh no. This bad ass demon thing shows up and beats your ass with birch switches. On Christmas. Yes, Billy. You get an ass whooping for Christmas. What better way to scare kids into not being little shitheads. And in some cultures, Krampus will TAKE YOUR SHITHEAD KIDS AWAY. Yeah, see? Better not pout, better not cry, better not shout, or you’ll never see your family again and you’ll have a sore ass.
So yeah, BRING ON THE KRAMPUS, Americans! Quit being such pussies!
@aelerelean and I have the same Krampus t-shirt. I like it. It’s the Krampus, after all. We wore them for a Christmas party. Where there were children in attendance. The 4 year old angelic (or not, depending on if you ask his mom or me) little boy walked up, poked me in the boob and we had this exchange:
“What’s what guy?”
“He’s the Krampus.”
“what’s Krampus?”
“Well, he travels with Santa and when–”
“I HAVE THREE PENNIES!”
“…Yes you do, buddy.” He takes off.
*note*: don’t give long winded explanations to 4 year olds. But later, he came back and was still intrigued with said Krampus. Again, poke to the tit:
“Who’s that guy?”
“He’s a creature. His name is Krampus” little blue eyes locked on my chest.
“Those two kids are sneaking up on him.” Wow. Smart kid.
“No, he’s stealing those kids because they have been bad. Really bad.”
“Why’s he gots a broom?” poke to the left boob, at which point Dad says “I think he’s found a way to grope boobies without getting caught.”
“Oh, that’s not a broom, those are switches. For spankings. To the naughty kids. Instead of presents from Santa.” Kid thinks hard for a couple of seconds and says, quite matter of factly:
“I’m not going to see him, because I’m a good boy.”
“Yes you are, little guy. You are a good boy.” He thinks on it a little more then runs off to play. I swear it was the CUTEST THING EVAR! Smartest damn 4 year old I ever saw.
Another friend was given Baby’s First Mythos so that he may indoctrinate his young ‘uns (4 and 7). I asked him if he really would read them those stories and got a very excited “YES! Of course I will!” I approve. If either one of them goes to school and says “No, I is not for ‘Ink’, I is for INNSMOUTH” I might just fall over in a faint from the absolute cuteness.
This past Sunday, I spent the day gathering supplies for homemade gift testing. See, for the last several years, I have given homemade jams/jellies as Christmas gifts. For the last couple of years I have tried my hand at candy making. I had some successes (alcoholic reindeer poops, quick fudge), some sorta successes (real fudge, toffee, caramels) and some outright goddammit-why-doesn’t-this-work (hard fucking candy). Hard Candy eludes me. My mold was too small, it wouldn’t release the sweet sugary goodness, it was messy, I scalded the cat (I don’t have a cat). I am so glad sugar is cheap. I tried the honey caramels again with a digital candy thermometer (yay!) and I guess they turned out. They look okay, but the house STILL smells of burnt sugar. It might be a success, I dunno. Some of you will find out come Christmas.
Monday and Tuesday I tested out new jellies. I like making wine jelly because it’s so damn simple. No fruit to cut or thaw, no weighing, no splashback of hot sugary napalm when a too large chunk of fruit hits the jar. Just wine, sugar and pectin. Ahhh. So I thougt, why not try fruit juice jelly? Hahahahahahahaha! When I think juice, I think jars of juice. Organic, no sugar added. Recipes think “take fruit, cook it, juice it, filter”. Eh, that’s work. If I go that route, I might as well make jam. I gave up looking for a decent recipe and adapted my wine one. Juice, sugar, pectin, and citric acid (for low acid fruit juices). Success? Kinda. Te first batch didn’t gel well. It was just really think syrup. I probably could have bottled it as a dessert topping. Second batch with different fruit yielded sligtly better results. I did learn that tart cherry will COMPLETELY OBLITERATE any other juice flavor. Cranberry will do the same.
Sooooo, back to the drawing board.